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“Sir, it’s Charpentier here. There’s been a breach.”

Francoeur got up on one elbow and waved his wife to go back to sleep.Advertisement

“What’s that mean?”

“I’m monitoring network activity, and someone’s accessed one of the restricted files.”

Francoeur turned on the light, put on his glasses, and looked at the clock on the bedside table. The bright red numbers said 5:43 A.M. He sat up.

“How serious?”

“I don’t know. It might not be anything. As instructed, I called Inspector Tessier and he told me to call you.”

“Good. Now explain what you saw.”

“Well, it’s complicated.”

“Try.”

Charpentier was surprised that so much menace could be contained in such a small word. He tried. His best. “Well, the firewall’s not showing that an unauthorized connection’s been made, but…”

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“But what?”

“It’s just that someone opened the file and I’m not sure who it was. It was within the network, so the person had access codes. It’s probably someone within the department, but we can’t be sure.”

“Are you telling me you don’t know if there has been a breach?”

“I’m saying there has, but we don’t know if it’s someone from the outside, or one of our own. Like a house alarm. At first it’s hard to tell if it’s an intruder or a raccoon.”

“A raccoon? You’re not seriously comparing the Sûreté’s state-of-the-art, multimillion-dollar security system with a house alarm?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but it’s only because it’s state-of-the-art that we found it at all. Most systems and programs would’ve missed it. But it’s so sensitive, sometimes we find things that don’t need to be found. That aren’t threats.”

“Like a raccoon?”

“Exactly,” said the agent, obviously regretting the analogy. It had worked with Tessier, but Chief Superintendent Francoeur was a whole other beast. “And if there is an intruder, we can’t yet tell if there’s a purpose, or if it’s just some hacker out to make trouble, or even someone who wandered in by mistake. We’re working on it.”

“By mistake?” They’d installed this system last year. Brought in the finest software designers and Internet architects to create something that couldn’t be breached. And now this agent was saying some idiot might have wandered in by mistake?

“It happens more often than people realize,” said Charpentier unhappily. “I don’t think it’s serious, but we’re treating it as though it is, just in case. And the file they’ve accessed doesn’t appear all that important.”

“Which file?” Francoeur asked.

“Something about the construction schedule for Autoroute 20.”

Francoeur stared at the curtains drawn in front of the bedroom window. There was a slight flutter as the cold air came into his home.

The file seemed so trivial, so far from anything that could threaten their plan, but Francoeur knew that file for what it was. For what it contained. And now someone was sniffing around.

“Check it out,” he said, “and call me back.”

“Yessir.”

“What is it?” asked Madame Francoeur, watching her husband head to the bathroom.

“Nothing, just a little trouble at work. Go back to sleep.”

“Are you getting up?”

“Might as well,” he said. “I’m awake now, and the alarm’ll go off soon anyway.”

But alarms were already going off for Chief Superintendent Francoeur.

* * *

“They’ve seen us,” said Jérôme. “I tripped the alarm here.”

“Where?” asked Gamache, pulling up a chair.

Jérôme showed him.

“Construction files?” asked Gamache, and turned to Thérèse. “Why would the Sûreté have any files on road construction, never mind ones that are secure?”

“No reason. It isn’t our jurisdiction. The roads, yes, but not repairing them. And it certainly wouldn’t be confidential.”

“They must be looking for us,” said Nichol. Her voice was calm. Just reporting facts.

“To be expected,” said Jérôme, his voice also calm.

On his monitor they saw files open and close. Appear and disappear.

“Stop typing,” said Nichol. pqdm.com