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“We’re in the real world, sir. What you’re describing is science fiction.”
“You think? The future is shaped every day by men and women who invent technologies. Often ones whose potential they don’t understand. Often ones used far differently than their creators intended. Technologies which to our grandparents would have been science fiction. And what happens when that technology—AI, for instance, with its voice and image cloning—is fed to social media? Public opinion is influenced, manipulated, changed, shaped. Governments are elected, policies formed and implemented. The future is created.”
Jean-Guy was now trying to decide when the next flight back to a somewhat sane land might be. But General Whitehead was still talking.
“That plot to contaminate Montréal’s drinking water was about water security, right?”
“Right.”
“Have you been paying attention to that issue? Not how vulnerable cities might be to a terrorist attack like the one you almost had in Montréal, that’s certainly one thing. But there’s a larger issue. One facing almost every nation.”
“What larger issue?”
Despite himself, Jean-Guy found he was drawn into what the General was saying. He could see that this man—who had been in wars, directed battles, had had to make terrible decisions with horrific consequences affecting tens of thousands under his command—was stressed. And with that Jean-Guy felt his own anxiety rising.
“Listen, sir, please. Just tell me. What’s happening? What’s about to happen? You know something.”
“I don’t know, not for sure. But I am afraid.”
“Of what?”
Whitehead stood up and placed a hundred-dollar bill on the table, even though Beauvoir had only had a coffee and the General, from what Jean-Guy could see, had had nothing.
“Of what happens when this”—he held up his untouched glass of water—“runs out.”
Armand was so anxious to get to the shore he stepped out of the dinghy before it reached the shallows and went thigh-deep into the frigid water.
But he didn’t seem to notice the cold. He was completely focused on one thing.
Chief Inspector Gamache was, essentially, storming the beach. Plowing through the water. Eyes forward, desperate to get to land.
Once on the rocky shore, he sprinted to the tree line, with Lacoste close behind. It was as though the Chief was being pursued by all the demons in hell.
He made straight for the tree. Dropping to his knees, he grabbed up the stone and looked again at the etching in the tree bark.
His teeth were beginning to chatter, and his body tremble. The brutally cold water had quickly penetrated to his bones and was advancing on the marrow. Isabelle took off her pink tuque with the pom-pom and held it out, but he didn’t seem to notice.
Armand’s sole focus was on the arrow. He was bending over, studying it. Then something happened.
He started to laugh, with a slight edge of hysteria.
“What is it, patron?” She’d never heard him make quite this sound before.
He tipped his head back, and the laughing stopped. Now he almost sobbed. “Oh, dear God, thank you.”
“What?”
“The arrow isn’t pointing north, it’s pointing up. Like the pilot did. Up.” He pointed, and she followed his gaze.
There, high up and all but hidden among the branches and fragrant needles of the evergreen, was a sack. A green garbage bag. It was strung up, as campers did, as Lacoste herself had done, to keep food and dirty dishes out of reach of bears.
But what was far above them was not, they knew, food. And it wasn’t bears Charles Langlois was afraid of. But a wolf.
Lacoste dropped her astonished gaze to Gamache. The Chief Inspector was sitting back on his heels, his head now lowered into his trembling hands.
CHAPTER 17
Agent Yvette Nichol was at her desk outside Chief Inspector Tardiff’s office. Considering.
