“I’m thinking you’re going to tell me.”
But the veneer of weariness and boredom had worn away, and even Michel could hear the curiosity in his voice. Not simply because he wanted to know about the Great Wall of China, something he had not spent a moment thinking about his entire life. But because he wanted to know why Armand was thinking of it.
“Millions of lives were lost building the wall and defending it. Dynasties went bankrupt paying for it and maintaining it,” said Gamache, looking out to sea and feeling the bracing salt air on his face.
“After more than a thousand years,” he continued, “an enemy finally broke through. Not because of superior firepower. Not because the Manchus were better fighters or strategists. They weren’t. The Manchus breached the Great Wall and took Beijing because someone opened a gate. From the inside. As simple as that. A general, a traitor, let them in and an empire fell.”
All the fresh air in the world surrounded them, but Michel Brébeuf couldn’t breathe. Armand’s words, their meaning, clogged his passages.
Armand sat with apparently infinite patience, waiting. For Michel to either recover or pass out. He would not hurt his former friend, at least not at the moment, but neither would he help him.
After several minutes, Michel found his voice. “A man’s foes shall be they of his own household, eh, Armand?”
“I doubt the Manchus would quote the Bible, but it does seem universal. Betrayal.”
“Have you come all this way to taunt me?”
“Non.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I want you to come work for me.”
The words were so ridiculous Brébeuf couldn’t understand them. He stared at Gamache in undisguised confusion.
“What? Where?” Brébeuf finally asked.
Though the real question, they both knew, was why.
“I’ve just taken over as the commander of the Sûreté Academy,” said Armand. “The new term starts right after Christmas. I’d like you to be one of the professors.”
Brébeuf continued to stare at Armand. Trying to grasp what was being said.
This was no simple job offer. Nor, he suspected, was it a peace offering. There’d been too much war, too much damage, for that. Yet.
This was something else.
“Why?”
But Armand didn’t answer. Instead he held Brébeuf’s eyes, until Michel lowered them. Then Gamache shifted his gaze back out to the view. To the vast ocean and the massive rock it had worn down.
“How do you know you can trust me?” asked Michel, to Armand’s profile.
“I don’t,” said Armand.
“You don’t know, or you don’t trust me?”
Armand turned then and gave Michel a look he’d never seen before. There wasn’t loathing there. Not quite. It wasn’t quite contempt. But it was close.
There was certainly knowing. Gamache saw him for what he was.
A weak man. A Percé man. Hollowed out by time and exposure. Worn down and misshapen. Pierced.
“You opened the gate, Michel. You could’ve stopped it, but you didn’t. When corruption came knocking, you let it in. You betrayed everyone who trusted you. You turned the Sûreté from a strong and brave force into a cesspool, and it has taken many lives and many years to clean it out.”
“Then why invite me back in?”
Armand got up and Brébeuf rose with him.
“The weakness in the Great Wall wasn’t structural, it was human,” said Gamache. “The strength, or weakness, of anything is primarily human. Including the Sûreté. And it all starts at the academy.”
Brébeuf nodded. “D’accord. I agree. But again, even more so, why me? Aren’t you afraid that I might infect them?”
He studied Gamache. Then smiled.
“Or is there already an infection there, Armand? That’s it, isn’t it? Did you come all this way for the antidote? Is that why you need me? I’m the antivirus. The stronger infection sent in to cure the disease. It’s a dangerous game, Armand.”
Gamache gave him a hard, assessing look, then went inside to get Reine-Marie.
Michel accompanied them back down the drive. And watched them drive away, back to the airport and the flight home.
Then he went inside. Alone. No more wife. No more children. No grandchildren. Just a magnificent view, out to sea.
On the flight, Gamache looked down at the fields, and forests, and snow, and lakes and considered what he’d done.
Michel was right, of course. It was dangerous, though it wasn’t a game.
What would happen, he wondered, if he couldn’t control it and the antibiotic, the virus, went viral?
What had he just sent in? What gate had he opened?
* * *
Instead of going back to Three Pines when they landed, Armand drove to Sûreté headquarters. But first he dropped Reine-Marie at their daughter’s home. Annie was four months pregnant with her first child and was showing now.
“Coming in, Dad?” she asked from the door. “Jean-Guy will be home soon.”
“I’ll be back later,” he said, kissing her on both cheeks.
“No rush,” called Reine-Marie, and closed the door.
At headquarters, Armand pressed the top button in the elevator and was swept up to the office of the Chief Superintendent.
Thérèse Brunel looked up from her desk. Behind her, the lights of Montréal spread out. He could see three bridges and the headlights of cars filled with people heading home. It was a commanding view, and behind the desk was a commanding presence.
“Armand,” she said, rising to greet her old friend with an embrace. “Thank you for coming in.”
Chief Superintendent Brunel indicated the sitting area and they both took seats. In her late sixties now, the slight, elegant woman had come to policing late in life and had taken to it as though she had been born to investigate crime.
She’d risen fast through the ranks, passing her old professor and colleague Chief Inspector Gamache, until she could rise no further.
Her office had been redecorated in soft pastels since the former chief superintendent had been, what? “Replaced” was not really the word.
While she’d been promoted beyond Gamache, they both knew it was a function of the politics within the Sûreté, and not competence. But still, she held the rank and commanded the office and the force with confidence.
Armand handed her his dossiers and watched as she read. He got up and poured them both drinks, giving her one and taking his to the wall of glass.
It was a view that never failed to move him, so much did he love Québec.
“There’s going to be hell to pay, Armand,” she finally said.
He remained where he was but turned and saw that while her face was serious, stern even, there was no criticism. It was simply a statement of fact.
“Oui,” he agreed, and turned back to the view as she returned to the documents.
“I see you’ve changed some of the students,” she said. “I’m not surprised. The problem will come from the faculty. You’re replacing at least half of them.”
Now he walked back to his chair and sat, placing his almost untouched drink on the coaster and nodding. “How could there be significant change if the same people are in charge?”