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“Tell me, Inspector, do you really believe something else, something worse, is about to happen?”
“I do, sir. I know this must be incredibly frustrating for you, to have us come here but without anything specific.”
“No, no. Despite what I said, I do appreciate it. I need to know. Your Chief is right. I made the terrible mistake once of ignoring a warning. I won’t do it again.”
“That was Inspector Beauvoir,” said Gamache, slipping his phone back into his jacket pocket. “He’s going through the links on Langlois’s laptop, and one constant is a conspiracy theory that’s gaining traction.”
“What is it now?”
“That Canada is about to attack the US.”
That brought the conversation to a standstill.
Prime Minister Woodford stared from one to the other, resting his eyes finally on Gamache.
“So?”
It was not the reaction Armand expected. “So? You aren’t surprised?”
Now Woodford laughed. “I’m sorry, but you should sit there for an hour”—he pointed to his desk—“and you’d see that nothing is surprising. My Chief of Staff came to me just yesterday with a site devoted to proving I’m an alien. An extraterrestrial. I kid you not. There are more than twelve thousand followers. Twelve thousand. Now, not all believe I came from some unfriendly planet, but if even one does…” He shook his head. “I can’t be worried about the nutcases. I wouldn’t get anything done.”
“Still—”
“Yes, I know. It’s not generally the sane ones who take potshots.”
“Not just potshots.”
“Not to worry, Chief Inspector. Everything’s passed along to the RCMP, even the ludicrous ones.”
Politics was not just becoming more polarized, it was far more dangerous, with people on all sides giving themselves permission to act in the most horrific ways. Ways that their grandparents would never recognize or approve of. That they themselves would not have approved of just a few years ago. All in the name of patriotism. A word, a concept, that had become weaponized, even toxic.
“So now, on top of all our environmental troubles, I’m supposed to be organizing an armed attack to take over the United States? Frankly, at this point we couldn’t invade Luxembourg and win. That’s just between us.”
“The people of Luxembourg will never hear it from me,” said Gamache.
The Prime Minister smiled wearily. It wasn’t yet nine a.m., and he seemed spent.
“The problem isn’t whether that’s planned,” said Gamache, feeling bad that he needed to keep pushing. “It’s that more and more people seem to believe it. Apparently, militias are being formed.”
“What? Really? To repel our attack? Let them play soldier as long as they don’t hurt any of our people.”
“Or you. Those sites will also be passed along to the RCMP and our intelligence services, and I’ll make sure the FBI and Homeland Security in the US get them. Most of these .onion sites seem to originate in the US, though it’s possible that’s just a port of convenience.”
“Like a flag of convenience for ships, to mask where they actually come from? I haven’t heard about internet ports of convenience.”
“I just made it up.”
Now Woodford really did laugh. “Well, I’d copyright that if I were you. Please tell me you made up the rest of it too.”
Gamache shook his head, then looked about to say something.
“What is it, Chief Inspector? Out with it. Our time is short.”
“Have you or your intelligence people heard anything out of the US about a thing called FEDS?”
“That’s the Fire Event Detection Suite. FEDS. Yes, I know about it, but it’s not really an intelligence issue, is it, or a big secret? It’s about tracking ash from megafires. Our meteorologists have access to FEDS, but after an initial flutter of excitement they had to admit it didn’t have many practical applications. It’s not like it can stop or even predict a fire. Though it is useful, I guess, in telling us where the ash will go. To warn the population. But not helpful stopping it.”
“Then why are we being warned about it?”
