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Sitting off to the side was a military helicopter. That was how the Minister got there so quickly.

“Get in.”

A soldier cross-checked Shona, shoving her toward the helicopter. The force of it made her stumble and fall, dropping Lacoste in the process. The soldier cocked his rifle and pointed, on the verge of shooting.

“No,” commanded Ferguson. “We drop them into the fire. Get their phones. No evidence, no remains. Nothing that can be traced back here. To us.”

“Oh, God,” whispered Workman.

Shona’s phone was still working. He was still recording what would now be their murders.

He turned to his Reuters colleague, who, like him, had seen terrible things. And this was right up there with the worst. Normally they came upon atrocities after the fact. Mass graves. Evidence of executions.

Neither had actually watched, helpless, as it happened. And, in Paul’s case, to someone he cared about.

Robert Ferguson climbed in and nodded to the pilot.

“You know where to go.” Then he turned to the officer in charge, standing on the tarmac. “As soon as we’re airborne, send off the planes. We’ll follow.”

“Yessir.”

The door slammed shut, and the Minister tapped the pilot’s shoulder. He gave a thumbs-up and the blades began to turn slowly.

Shona lay on the floor. Unable to accept that this was really happening.

Someone would save them at the last minute.

The helicopter would not be allowed to take off.

But the rotors picked up speed, their thud, thud, thud mimicking, mocking, the pounding of her heart.

She was about to plead, to beg for her life. But the words died on her lips. It was useless. She was going to die. Nothing now would stop that. She was damned if her last act was begging. Still, a small “Please” escaped. Unheard over the rotors.

Shona looked around the cabin. There must be something she could use, to fight back.

Something. Anything. But there was nothing.

The helicopter lifted off, wavered for a moment, then tipped forward. On its way.

Isabelle lay on the metal floor. Shona reached out and held her hand.

Out the window, she could see the mauve of the early-evening sky and the forest below. Its canopy of autumn leaves, red and yellow and amber, undulated with the current created by the rotors making it look as though the woods were alive.

Then the helicopter banked sharply.

CHAPTER 34

Armand checked his phone again.

It had been too long since he’d heard from Isabelle or Shona. He had, though, had a call from Jean-Guy.

“We’re at Mirabel. It’s the wrong airport, patron,” Jean-Guy shouted into the phone. “Moretti’s here. We’ve got him, but there’re no bombs.”

But of course Gamache already knew that.

He tried to calm Jean-Guy, reassure him. “Not wrong. You got Moretti. You couldn’t have known that he was being used as a decoy.”

“So where are the planes? The bombs. What’s going to happen now? For God’s sake, patron. Where are they if not Mirabel? And where’s Isabelle?”