It was said sarcastically, and Fleming flushed.

“It fooled you, didn’t it?”

Gamache lifted his hands then dropped them to the cold metal table, so like an autopsy bench.

“You don’t really know who I am, do you?” said Gamache. It was like toying with a grenade. The guard at the door clutched his assault rifle tighter and even Beauvoir backed away a little.

“No one knew about Big Babylon,” said Fleming. “No one. They thought the Highwater gun was the only one, and when it failed they thought we’d failed.”

“You proved all the critics right,” said Gamache. “Project Babylon wouldn’t work. They laughed and stopped paying attention, and you quietly went about building the real thing.”

It was, Gamache had to admit, genius. A massive act of legerdemain, and the sleight of hand had worked. They were able to hide the biggest missile launcher in history because everyone was looking in the wrong direction. Until Gerald Bull’s ego roared to life.

“Of course, the real genius was Guillaume Couture,” said Gamache.

“You know about him?” said Fleming, assessing and reassessing his visitor. “Yes. We’d make a fortune, thanks to Dr. Couture.”

“Until Gerald Bull threatened the whole thing.”

Gamache took the photograph out of his pocket. He hadn’t planned to do this. In fact, his plan was not to do this. But he knew his only hope of getting information out of Fleming was to imply he already knew it.

He smoothed the picture on the metal surface then turned it around.

Fleming’s brows rose, and again his lips curled up. In his youth this man might have been attractive, but all that was gone, eaten away not by his age but by his actions.

Gamache tapped the photo. “This was taken at the Atomium in Brussels shortly before Bull was killed.”

“That’s a guess.”

“You don’t like guesses?”

“I don’t like uncertainty.”

“Is that why you killed Gerald Bull? Because he could no longer be controlled?”

“I killed him because I was asked to do it.”

Ah, thought Gamache. One piece of information.

“You probably shouldn’t have told me that,” said Gamache. “Aren’t you worried that with the gun discovered, you might be next? I’d be worried.”

He was taking a risk, he knew. But since he was in Fleming’s head, he might as well mess around and see what happened.

He saw fear in Fleming’s face and realized that this loyal agent of death was afraid of it himself. Or perhaps not so much afraid of death as the afterlife.

“Who are you?” Fleming asked yet again.

“I think you know who I am,” said Gamache.

Now he was in uncharted territory. Beyond Fleming’s head, beyond even that cavern that had once housed his heart, and into the dark and withered soul of the creature.