Deliver Us From Evil (6 page)

“
Y
OU TALKED
to her, didn’t you?” asked Frank.

Shaw looked up from the papers he was studying. “Who?”

“Don’t play stupid. Katie!”

“How’d you know?”

“Because your head has been in your ass the last few days. If I’d known you’d be like this I never would’ve given you the
damn number. So how did she sound?”

“Fine.”

“What’d you two talk about?”

“What the hell is it to you?”

“Nothing. Whatever. Excuse me for giving a shit. Okay, back to Evan Waller.”

“I don’t like the plan. It has too many holes.”

Surprisingly, Frank nodded. “I agree with you. What do you suggest?”

“Simplifying it. Events on the ground tend to complicate things anyway. Start simple, then if things get hairy they’re still
manageable. You start out complicated and things go to hell, it’s not good because there are too many pieces that can go wrong.”

“We know where he lives in Montreal, but taking him there has never gotten authorization from higher up. Too public, too much
collateral damage potential, and the guy never keeps to a schedule there. He moves like a ghost, always varying his route
and routine.”

Shaw said, “Then we have to find one moment in time in Provence where he does keep to a schedule and the collateral damage
is minimal.”

The two men looked at the floor plan of the villa where the human trafficker would be staying. On the wall was a plasma screen
containing more data, including all roads in and out of the target area.

Frank clicked a button on a control pad on the table in front of him and a set of pictures came up on the large screen. “He
always travels with these guys, all major kick-ass types. And that’s the ones we know about. There may be more as backup.”

“He’ll advance-team the site, lock it down, and then sit on it,” added Shaw as he studied the bodyguards, each one looking
tougher, meaner, and more capable than the last. “How reliable is the intel on his travel itinerary?”

“Very. We got it off phone chatter, email, and company credit card transactions.”

Shaw looked up. “Americans? They’ve got the best hard and software for that.”

“Let’s put it this way: I owe the heads of NSA and CIA a really nice meal.”

Frank pulled out some docs and read over them. “His flight plan was filed. He’s flying from Montreal to Paris in his private
wings. Refuel and then on to the airport at Avignon. Short hop in the bird. He typically travels in a three-vehicle motorcade.
He’s got car rentals reserved in Avignon.”

Shaw pushed a button on the laptop and another picture came up, an exterior shot of the street where Waller’s rental was located.
“There’s a villa next door.”

“Already leased to someone.”

“Who?”

“Did a prelim. Tourist. Looks absolutely clean.”

“Right next door, though?”

“Gordes is a very popular destination and those villas are in high demand. We couldn’t exactly stop them from being leased
without raising a big red flag. But it doesn’t matter. We’re not doing the snatch in Gordes. Too much collateral damage possibility.”

Shaw looked at another computer screen that gave a partial itinerary for Evan Waller. He sat up straighter. “How do you know
he’s going to the caves at Les Baux-de-Provence?”

“He had to get special permission for the tour and we accessed that data.”

“Why? Isn’t it open to the public?”

“Well, our Mr. Waller wanted a very private tour. Closed off to the public. To make that happen he paid big bucks. The place
is in private hands. They can do what they want. When we saw the payment going to them we hacked their computer system and
found the schedule. So we know the exact date he’ll be there.”

Shaw swiveled in his chair to face another computer whose hard drive was clean except for factory-loaded software, including
a browser. They used it to connect to the Internet. He hit some keys and read over the results. “Okay, I’ve actually heard
of this place. It’s a photo-exhibition gallery; light show on the rock walls, a narrated tour, recorded documentary, yada
yada. They choose a different artist each year.” He sat, mulling this new information over. “I think we have our extraction
location.”

He spun the laptop around and let Frank look at the screen. It was information about the exhibition venue. “The caves have
one entrance, lots of rooms, and few attendants, so it’s easy to get lost or disoriented. We cut the power source and the
extraction team is already in place with optics and one-shot-and-drop tranquilizer guns. We separate the boss from the muscle
and off we go.”

Frank thought about this. “Limits collateral damage too. We’ll need eyes on the ground ahead of time to confirm all the details.”

“No argument there. But what better place to take a rat than in a hole?”

“But if the hit misses at the caves the guy’s going to be on his private wings out of France.”

Shaw sat back. “It’s not perfect, but it’s the best we can do under the circumstances. His trip to the caves is the only time
we’ll know for sure where he’ll be going. And I really don’t see how we can miss.”

T
HE EXTRACTION PLAN
was in place. The caves had been gone over thoroughly by assets on the ground in Provence. Shaw would also visit the caves
when he got there. In the meantime he had studied detailed plans of the caves’ exterior and interior until he could draw them
out on paper from memory. Waller was scheduled to travel there less than a week after his arrival; his private tour began
at 10 a.m. sharp.

After each long day of work, which included handpicking the members of the hit team and prepping them, Shaw would go to his
hotel, change, do his run, and then wander the streets of Paris alone until the darkness thickened and his energy waned. One
night he was eating alone at a café across from the Jardin du Luxembourg, a place Anna Schmidt had loved. They’d walk through
the gardens, hand-in-hand, watch the children sail their wooden boats in the large central fountain, and then sit and observe
people drift by. He couldn’t go back there now because for him it was hallowed ground that could not be trod on again. But
he had ventured close enough to see some of the flowers from a distance. That was the best he could do before his chest started
to tighten and his eyes moistened.

He’d just ordered his food when he looked around the restaurant, checking each table. A decades-long habit, it was as natural
to him as drawing breath. He drew a quick one when he saw her standing there in the doorway that separated one dining area
from another.

Katie James didn’t look as thin as the last time he’d seen her, which was good because she’d needed to put on some weight.
Her naturally blonde hair, spiky and dark the last time they’d been together, had grown out and now nearly touched her shoulders.
She had on a white skirt, two-inch heels, no hose, and a dark blue long-sleeved blouse. He’d never known her to wear a sleeveless
shirt, primarily because of the bullet wound on her upper left arm.

As she walked toward him he could see that her makeup did not quite cover the darkened circles under her eyes. She was a beautiful
woman; many men in the room turned their heads to stare, incurring the wrath of the ladies with whom they were dining. Yet
apparently a glimpse of Katie James walking across the room was worth the risk.

She didn’t wait for him to extend an invitation; she simply sat down across from him. “You look good,” she said. She eyed
his hair. “A little gray?”

“A little. You look all the way back. Put on a few needed pounds. Although I kind of liked the dark, spiky hairdo.” He paused.
“How did you know where I was?” He answered his own question before she could. “Frank. What’s his interest? I’ve never known
him to care one way or another about my personal life.”

“I don’t think he did until Anna was killed.”

“He told me you called him.”

“I wouldn’t have had to if you’d ever called me back.”

“I’m sorry I walked out on you.”

“There were no ties. You’re a big boy, I’m a big girl. My only problem with that was I wasn’t sure you were alive. That’s
why I called Frank. To make sure you were okay.”

This made Shaw feel even guiltier. “Well, I’m fine. Back working. Everything’s okay. I told you that on the phone.”

“I wanted to see for myself.”

He looked down at the table. “Have you eaten dinner?”

“I’m not hungry.”

This surprised him, her turning down his invitation to dine with him, and his face showed it. “Katie.”

She rose. Their gazes locked for an extended moment. “Good luck, Shaw.”

She hesitated for another second, long enough for him to say something to keep her there. Yet he remained quiet.

She turned and left.

Shaw sat there for several beats, a massive struggle going on inside his mind. Finally, he threw some euros on the table,
hustled from the restaurant, and looked up and down the crowded street.

But Katie was already gone.

I
T WAS
after midnight as Reggie crept down to the library at Harrowsfield. The rain was beating against the windows and a cold
wind was catapulting down the chimney, feeding a burst of oxygen onto a fading fire. She closed the door behind her, sat at
the long table, and picked up a file. Under the light of a single table lamp she went over the murderous career of Fedir Kuchin
for probably the hundredth time. The atrocities hadn’t changed, of course, but if anything they had become more firmly embedded
in her mind. She could recite the statistics from memory; she could see the faces of the victims, pages and pages of them.
The images of the mass graves, unearthed long after the man had fled the locations of his brutal handiwork, appeared to be
seared onto her corneas.

She picked up a grainy picture—they were all grainy pictures, as though violent death could never have any fragment of color—and
stared down at the face there. Colonel Huber had had his David Rosenbergs and his Frau Koches, photos Reggie had selected
from countless others to show the man at the moment of his death. Well, Fedir Kuchin had his own testaments to a level of
insane cruelty that all these men seemed to possess.

The photo she was looking at now was that of a man with an unpronounceable surname. He’d been neither wealthy nor well connected.
He’d lived nearly a thousand kilometers from the capital city of Kiev. He was a simple farmer with a large family, one that
he worked long hours to support. His crime against the state had amounted to his refusal to turn in his friends to the KGB, to Fedir Kuchin specifically. His punishment had been to be doused with
petrol and set on fire in front of his wife and children. He had been burned to bone and cinder while they were forced to
watch and listen to his screams.

She picked up another document. Originally written in Ukrainian, it had been translated for her on another piece of paper.
It was the order condemning the doomed farmer to death by fire. Fedir Kuchin’s signature appeared large and bold at the bottom
of the page, as though he wanted no doubt as to who was the instigator of the man’s horrible murder.

Finally, she gingerly picked up another old photo. It was Fedir Kuchin himself. She held the paper only by the edges, as though
afraid to actually touch the image of the man. He was wearing a uniform with the collar undone. In one hand was a pistol,
in the other a bottle. It was obviously a staged photo. Back then he had dark hair, slicked back with a severe widow’s peak.
His face had not changed all that much over time. Yet the eyes were what drew one in. Reggie felt as though she were traveling
down a dark path to the very center of them, losing herself in shadows from which meaningful escape seemed unlikely. She righted
herself and slowly put the photo back down, covering it with a stack of paper.

Over the next thirty minutes she went through dozens of other pictures of the dead, Kuchin’s bloody fingerprints on each one.
The paperwork was in some ways mechanical; it could have been purchase orders for equipment or food. Yet it was written commands
to kill other human beings, done in old-fashioned triplicate complete with carbon copies. Death by bullet. Death by fire.
Death by gas. Death by the blade. Death by the noose. All neat and nice. Thank God for those carbon copies, thought Reggie.
Without them it would have been nearly impossible to track down and then administer justice to men like Kuchin.

“Extra reading, my dear?”

Startled, Reggie looked around.

Professor Mallory stood in the doorway in an old, tattered checked robe, holding a book and staring at her.

“I never heard you come in,” she said, obviously unsettled that the old man could have gotten this close without her knowing.

“Well, I am light on my feet, despite my size and rheumatism, and you were very much engrossed in what you were doing.” He
stepped forward and glanced down at the papers and photos with an inquiring look.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I often can’t sleep,” she admitted.

He sat down in a worn leather chair near the fireplace. “A fact of which I am aware.”

“What are you doing up? Do you have insomnia too?”

“No, Regina, not insomnia.” He winced in pain as he settled himself farther into the cracked leather. “An enlarged prostate,
I’m afraid. Given a choice I’d gladly take the insomnia.”

“I’m sorry.”

He eyed the file she was holding. “So what do you think? Any brilliant insights?”

“He’s a man without remorse. He signed off on a thousand death warrants like he would a damn pub bill.”

“Well, I agree with you, but that’s something we already knew.”

He rose, placed another small log on the fire, sat back down in his armchair, and opened his book.

“What are you reading?” Reggie asked.

“On a wild night like this? Agatha Christie, of course. I still feel compelled to see if Hercule Poirot’s ‘little gray cells’
will do their job one more time. It seems to often inspire my own brain, however inferior it might be to the diminutive Belgian’s.”

Reggie rose and stood in front of the fire. Before coming downstairs she’d pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt, but her feet
were bare and a chill had worked into her. “There
was
one thing, Professor.”

He looked up from his pages as the storm threw rain at the old leaded window with nearly the force of an errant hose. A scream
from the angry wind came down the chimney and Reggie backed away from the sound and sat on a small hassock near him.

“What thing?” he asked.

“Kuchin is a religious man.”

Mallory closed his book and nodded. He pulled his pipe from his pocket and began to stuff it with tobacco.

“Professor, if you don’t mind, that smell actually makes me sick.”

He looked surprised. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“I guess I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.” She gave a hollow laugh. “I guess after the things I’ve done that seems a bit
odd.”

His expression remained serious. “What’s odd? That you have enormous compassion? I would imagine that facet of your personality
is one major reason you do this job.”

Reggie hurried on. “Anyway, I read over the case notes. And it says that Kuchin goes to church every Sunday and gives large
sums for religious purposes.”

Mallory slipped the pipe back in his pocket. “It’s true enough. I’ve seen it before with men like him. Seeking redemption,
solace, hedging one’s bets, even. It’s madness, of course, for such men to believe that any ‘god’ of goodness would have anything
to do with the likes of them after death.”

“Mass killers, you mean?”

Mallory interpreted the intent behind her words immediately. “You are nothing like the Fedir Kuchins of the world, Regina.”

“Funny, some days it’s hard for me to tell the difference, really.”

Mallory stood so fast that he dropped his novel. He strode over to the table, picked up a piece of paper, and came back to
her, thrusting it in her hands.

It was the photo of the remains of the incinerated farmer. “
There
is the difference, Regina. Right there.” He took her hand, gripped it firmly, and looked directly into her eyes. “And now
tell me about the church.”