“And which establishment was that? The other armament designers?” Beauvoir asked.
“You carry a gun,” said Rosenblatt, looking at the holster attached to Beauvoir’s belt. “Best not to be hypocritical.”
But his smile softened the statement.
“I guess we’re all hypocrites, to a degree,” Rosenblatt admitted. “I worked on ballistics and trajectory, and it wasn’t for the fisheries department.”
Beauvoir smiled, nodded and took a forkful of grilled scallop. It turned out to be delicious. The only possible improvement would be to deep-fry them, he thought.
“We all draw lines,” the professor was saying. “Even those who design weapons. Things that are too horrible to do, even if they can be done.”
“This is a world with nuclear bombs and chemical weapons,” said Beauvoir, putting his fork down. Suddenly no longer hungry. “How much more horrible can it get?”
To his relief, Professor Rosenblatt didn’t answer. Instead the elderly professor looked out the old windowpanes, to the quiet little village. “I can’t believe he built it. He was begged not to, but he thought the other designers were just jealous.”
“Did you know Dr. Bull?” Beauvoir asked.
“As I told you, only by reputation. I wasn’t in his league, but I was a part of that community, even if it was just at the edges, the academic part.”
“And were you jealous?” asked Beauvoir. “Were the other designers jealous?”
Rosenblatt shook his head. “We were frightened.”
“Of what?”
“That what Gerald Bull said could be done really could. And that he’d actually do it. He was assassinated to stop him, there’s little doubt of that. I think the CSIS files will prove it. But they didn’t realize it was too late. The die was cast. The weapon built.”
“Oui,” said Beauvoir. “But who did he build it for and why did he build it here?”
* * *
“He’s a crackpot,” said Mary Fraser, looking across the bistro at the elderly man’s back. “Has all sorts of strange ideas about Gerald Bull. And about us. He’s got a sort of persecution complex. Thinks we’re keeping information from him.”
“Well, we are,” said Delorme.
“Yes, but it isn’t personal,” said Mary Fraser. “It’s all covered under the Security of Information Act. We can’t release it, even if we want to. Which reminds me, who have you told about the Supergun besides him?”
“It’s in our official report on the crime,” said Lacoste. “But that’s confidential. We haven’t made any announcement.”
“Good. Please don’t until we get a handle on the thing.”
“Yes, we need to put this on lockdown,” said Delorme, obviously enjoying using that phrase perhaps for the first time in his career.
“I can understand keeping the Supergun confidential for now, but why has the information on Gerald Bull been kept a secret?” asked Isabelle Lacoste, taking a forkful of her warm duck salad. “The man’s long dead.”
“I don’t really know,” said Mary Fraser. It seemed she’d never asked herself that question. Her job, after all, was to analyze the files, not question the content.
“You’ve obviously read the files,” Lacoste pressed. “You’re probably more familiar with Gerald Bull than anyone else in the world. What do those files say?”
“They say he was a common arms dealer, probably a sociopath,” said Mary Fraser. She was talking about Gerald Bull, but continued to look at Rosenblatt. “He didn’t care who he sold his weapons to, or how they’d be used.”
“All Dr. Bull wanted was boatloads of money and the chance to prove his theories right,” said Delorme. “And if, in the process, hundreds of thousands of people died, it wasn’t his concern.”
“If he’d succeeded, God knows what would’ve happened in the region,” said Mary Fraser, turning back to look at Lacoste.
“Then his client really was Saddam?” asked Lacoste.
“The field agents believed it,” said Mary Fraser.
“But even if they were wrong and he sold to the Israelis or the Saudis, it would still be a goddamn mess,” said Delorme.
“Armageddon,” said Mary Fraser. Somehow she managed to say it without making it sound ridiculous, even in this most peaceful of places.
“How did you know about the etching on the gun?” Lacoste asked. “The Whore of Babylon.”