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“True. I have no intention of shooting fellow officers, or anyone else. Having a gun escalates violence, it doesn’t prevent it. How did you get this?”

“I asked for it at the front door. Told them the PM wanted it as evidence. I also have…”

She handed him his phone.

He noticed, without surprise, that there was no reception down there.

“We need to get out.” He tucked the weapon into his belt and the phone into his pocket.

“Non.”

“Non?”

“You need to read this first.” Once again she offered him the slender dossier. “I got it while the cabinet meeting was on.”

“I’ll read it once we’re out.”

“Now, read it now. It won’t take long. We’re not leaving until you do. It’s important. I think you’ll be surprised.”

He looked at his watch. It was one o’clock.

“What?” she said. “You have a lunch date?”

Not exactly that, but he did have an appointment with Jeanne Caron at the Haskell Opera House in three hours. But that was not going to happen unless he got out of Parliament. And he needed Marie Lauzon for that.

He took the file. The light was dim, and he’d lost his reading glasses when he’d hit the ground after the blow. But slowly his eyes adjusted.

It was just two pages. When he finished, he reread it to be sure he understood. Then he looked up at Marie Lauzon.

“You know what that says?” she asked.

“I’m not sure…”

“I think you are.”

“Do you know for sure that this”—he held up the file—“is legitimate? Not doctored. Not put there for us to find?”

What she’d found was essentially a skeleton. The structure, the core of what was planned. What was plotted. While complex, covering years and eventualities, this slender document acted as a clear schematic. Appropriately, Gamache thought, in bullet point.

It was beyond damning, if true. It named names. It outlined roles.

“It’s real. We need to get to Prime Minister Woodford.”

“Are you insane?” he asked.

“Are you a coward?”

“I’m a realist. There’s no way we’re getting to Woodford.”

“Not just getting to him, we need to bring him with us.”

He looked back down at the document in his hand. It was more dangerous than any weapon he’d ever held or beheld.

If they got caught, it would be destroyed, and they’d be killed. They’d have to be. There was no doubt now.

He raised his eyes to hers and wondered if she realized the full import of this slender document. What it was saying without actually saying it.

But that didn’t matter. Not now, not yet. All that mattered was getting it out.