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"--of course he was"

"--that speaks of arrogance, of hubris A king who thought his achievements would stand for thousands of years, but all that remained of him was a broken statue in the desert"

"And yet he was finally immortalized," said Rosenblatt "Not because of his power, but because of a poe sht

"Who was Gerald Bull?" he finally asked

Professor Rosenblatt had unbuckled the briefcase and, after sorting through the contents, brought out some papers

"I found these in ht be needed"

He put the papers, held together by a staple, on the coffee table

"This is Dr Bull"

Isabelle Lacoste picked theht was yellowed and typewritten There was also a grainy black-and-white photograph of aput upon

"He was an ar on who you speak to, Dr Bull was either a visionary or an aner"

"Hein the woods?" asked Lacoste

"I think so, yes I think it was part of what he called Project Babylon His goal was to design and build a gun so powerful it could launch a missile into low Earth orbit, like a satellite Froet"

"But don’t those exist?" asked Beauvoir "ICBMs?"

"Yes, but the Supergun is different," said Rosenblatt

"The Meccano set," said Lacoste "No electronics"

"Exactly" The professor bea that depends on software or even electricity Just good old-fashioned armaments, not that far off the artillery used in the First World War"

"But as that such an achievement?" asked Gamache "It sounds like a step back, not forward As Inspector Beauvoir says, if there’re ICBMs that can send nuclear warheads thousands of miles accurately, ould anyone want or need Gerald Bull’s Supergun?"