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But she did. There was malevolence in her eyes, in her voice.
“You really are a fool. This won’t hold. I’ll be out in days, if not hours. And then there’ll be no mercy. When they’re finished firebombing the forests, we’ll turn on your little village and obliterate it. As punishment, and a warning to anyone who also thinks they can stop us. All you’ve done is made it worse.”
Gamache ignored Caron and turned to Flores. “General Whitehead?”
The officer shook his head.
As he left, Armand glanced toward the empty stage.
So don’t be so naïve, and take that heart off your sleeve,
For a fool and his life will soon be parted.
War’s a fact of life today, it will not be wished away,
Forget that fact, and you’ll be dead before you started.
Stepping into the cool late-afternoon air, Armand could smell the earthy forest, the sweet pines.
This needed to end. And it would, before the sun set. One way or another. He desperately wanted to head north to the airfield, but knew by the time he got there, it would all be over.
Whatever the outcome, his place was back home.
I’m dreamin’ of the trees in Canada, Northern Lights are dancing in my head.
If I die, then let me die in Canada, where there’s a chance I’ll die in bed.
CHAPTER 33
Armand stared at the map and the red circle.
Mirabel.
Mirabel.
The wrong airport. They’d headed to the wrong one.
And it was his fault. He’d chosen to tell only one of them where to go. Where the firebombs would be. The airport named in the dossier Marie Lauzon found in the files of the Minister of Defense.
He hoped and prayed Isabelle was on her way there. He didn’t dare write to distract her. Or alert anyone.
He checked his phone again. Still nothing from either Isabelle or Jean-Guy. He paced, then stopped. And listened, cocking his head.
The remaining cicadas were now playing an especially nasty trick on him. It was as though the few that were left were seeking revenge, determined to do as much damage as possible before leaving.
Now they sounded less like screaming insects and more like the drone of bombers approaching.
He walked to the door and, opening it, looked into the late-afternoon sky. The sun was low on the horizon, and he thought he could just make out Venus rising.
A careful man, he stood there a few moments, to make sure Venus wasn’t, in fact, moving. Toward the village.
But it was stable.
Armand closed the door and looked at his phone again.
A message had come in from Bert Whitehead’s wife. He climbed the stairs, and in the demi-darkness of the church, he called her.
The blow that dropped Isabelle Lacoste had not been pulled at the last minute. This one struck her hard in the abdomen, breaking a rib and winding her.
