“Good evening, I’m Susan Bonner and this is the World at Six.”

Adam Cohen could barely hear the words for the pounding in his ears.

“Our top story tonight, an astonishing find in Québec’s Eastern Townships.”

He checked his device. All electronics were blocked inside the penitentiary, but there was a code the guards used and Cohen had programmed it in. His device showed five bars. And no messages.

Closing his eyes for just a moment, Adam Cohen gathered himself and then got out of the car and walked, resolutely, toward the small door in the thick wall.

*   *   *

“Our top story tonight, an astonishing find in Québec’s Eastern Townships.”

“Merde,” said Isabelle Lacoste. The broadcast streamed over her laptop in the Incident Room.

It was six o’clock, and it was worse than they thought. The CBC did not yet know the exact location of Gerald Bull’s Supergun, but they’d narrowed it down to this region.

The story unfolded. One journalist had a report on Gerald Bull’s unlikely life and mysterious death. Another told the story of Project Babylon, and Saddam Hussein, and the coming together of two madmen.

Three, Lacoste knew. Three madmen.

*   *   *

“I heard you coming,” said Fleming in his soft, flawed voice. He studied the young man in front of him. “You used to be a guard here, didn’t you?”

But Adam Cohen heeded Gamache’s warning, not to tell Fleming anything. Not to engage the man.

“Does he need a change of clothes?” one of the five guards who’d accompanied Cohen asked.

“No,” said Cohen. “We won’t be gone for long. He’ll be back by midnight.”

“Before I turn into a pumpkin?” asked Fleming as they put the cuffs and restraints on him. “Or something.”

“You sure you want to do this?” asked another guard. The one who’d been Cohen’s friend when he’d worked at the SHU. The one Adam Cohen had gone to with the authorization. Because he knew this man would trust him.

And he had. He’d accepted without question the letter from the Sûreté authorizing Cohen to take Fleming.

Fleming was watching this exchange, his reptile eyes sliding from one man to the other, sensing, perhaps, a betrayal in progress.

*   *   *

Jean-Guy skidded to a stop. He’d turned the corner and was sprinting across the bridge to the Incident Room to tell Lacoste to call off Cohen.

“Where’re you going?” he called after Gamache, who’d missed the turn and was running, plans in hand, toward the bistro.

“We have to make sure these are the plans.” Gamache held them up but didn’t stop running.

“They say Project Babylon, patron. What else could they be?”

“Highwater, that’s what. More misdirection.”

Beauvoir looked at the old railway station behind him, then at Gamache in front of him.

“Shit,” said Jean-Guy, and raced to catch up with Gamache.