David Baldacci - Deliver Us From Evil

Dominic had seen her drive up and was waiting for her at the door.

When she walked in the cottage and saw the messy digs she said, “I see Whit has settled in quite nicely here. Where is he, by the way?”

“Out working on the job. Told me to hang here.”

“I just got a text from the professor. That’s why I’m here. He wanted to know if there are problems. Are there?”

Dominic tugged at the wrists of his sweatshirt. “I take it you and Whit had words.”

Reggie sat down on the edge of a chair. “Why, what did he tell you?”

“You want his version straight or the cleaned-up copy?”

“What did he say, Dom!”

“Verbatim, that you’ve ‘lost your bloody head over this bloke and you’re possibly screwing everything up,’ only he didn’t use the word ‘screwing.’ ”

“Is that what you think?”

“You went out with him today, right?”

“And I’m going to see him tonight too.”

“Reg,” he began.

She cut him off. “And do you know why?”

“Why don’t you enlighten me?” he said sarcastically.

“I can see you’ve been hanging out with Whit too long. That tone doesn’t become you, Dom.”

“You may not agree with him on everything, but he’s got good instincts in the field.”

“No, he has great instincts in the field. But so do I. And this time he’s just wrong.”

“And why is that?”

They both whirled around to see Whit standing in the doorway that led to the small kitchen.

“I thought you were out,” said Reggie.

Whit came forward and sank down on the couch next to Dominic. “I was and now I’m back. So keep talking. This is really informative.”

“By the way, Bill knew someone had searched his room.”

“Really? Guy’s better than I thought. I’ll have to keep that in mind.” Whit continued to stare at her.

“Do that. At least for future missions.”

“Back to this mission. And your relationship with little Billy?”

“Okay. I’ll lay it out for you. I have a short time frame to get to Kuchin. The whole mission is predicated on him going where I want him to go at a certain time and day.”

Whit tugged his jacket off and tossed it on a small table in one corner. “Just get to the part we don’t know and are thinking the worst about, meaning you and bloody Bill!”

“Jealousy,” said Reggie simply. “It’s the fastest way to reel a man in. He thinks I’m spending too much time with Bill, Kuchin gets antsy. He’s already reacted that way. That gives me the upper hand. He’ll come at me hard: ‘Janie, go to this beautiful place with me and that beautiful place and have this lovely dinner and drink that lovely wine.’ And it’ll come to the point that wherever I suggest that we go, he’ll do it, without hesitation. So having Bill around actually made my job far easier. I don’t have to overtly throw myself at Kuchin, which is very good, because a man like that will see through that sort of thing nine times out of ten. He believes he’s coming after me, it’s a whole different story. His defenses are down.” She paused. “But if you two male-female experts have a better way, I’m listening.”

Dominic looked over at Whit, who was still staring at Reggie. “So this is all tied to the mission?” Whit asked.

“It’s always been tied to the mission, Whit. Everything I do in my bloody life has been tied to the mission. If you’d get your brains out of your crotch you might be able to see that. Or did I misinterpret your last remark back at Harrowsfield? What was it again?”

“A glimpse of thigh and a pretty face, more or less,” said Whit with a smirk.

“What are you two talking about?” demanded Dominic as he stared between them.

“Nothing, Dom,” she said.

“Are you two having an affair?” Dominic persisted.

Whit laughed. “Not for lack of trying, at least on my part, but Sister Reggie here’s having nothing to do with it.” The smile quickly faded from his lips. “Okay, Reg, what you just said makes sense. Jealousy.”

“Jealousy,” she repeated, staring him down. “It works with most men.”

Whit looked away. “I’m hungry. You want anything?”

“No, but I do have a request.”

He sat up, looking interested. “Shoot.”

“I need some new equipment.”

Dominic looked at her warily. “What sort of equipment?”

“Stuff that’ll project pictures on a wall. Can you get it?”

“I don’t see why not,” said Dom. “There are big electronics stores in Avignon.”

“Then get it, as fast as you can.”

Whit looked confused. “What do you have in mind?”

She rose. “You’ll see.”

When she got back to her villa, Fedir Kuchin was standing in the middle of the narrow road, his arms open wide in welcome to her.

She wanted to place a bullet between his eyes. Instead she sighed, forced another smile, and climbed out of her car.

SHAW CLOSED the door behind him and said angrily, “What the hell are you doing here, Frank? There’s no face-to-face during an op, you know that.”

Frank Wells remained sitting in the chair, his face looking slightly pinched. “You went out to Les Baux-de-Provence today.”

“I know I did,” snapped Shaw. “So?”

“Why’d you do that?”

“Because Waller had invited Janie to go with him on his private tour, and I couldn’t let that happen.” He held up a hand when Frank looked ready to say something. “It has nothing to do with her personally. It would’ve just been a logistical headache to have her in the way when we do the extraction.”

“Yeah, well, I got bad news on that. It’s why I’m here. Didn’t want to tell you over the phone.”

Shaw dropped his room key on the table and sank onto the bed. “What bad news?”

“They’re pulling the op. Amy Crawford and the strike team are already wheels up and out of the country.”

Shaw rose so fast he almost hit his head on the low ceiling. “What! Why?”

“Things have changed.”

“Changed! How could they have changed? Waller’s looking to sell nukes. Crazy people are trying to buy them from him so they can go and blow up a chunk of the world. How can that possibly change?”

“It does if he’s no longer trying to sell them. And in fact he might very well have killed the people he was trying to do business with.”

“How do you know that?”

“Found two bodies in a lake that match the descriptions of the Islamic guys who were dealing with Waller. They both exhibited signs of extreme torture. Plus we got chatter on the communication lines that indicates the Muslims are no longer working with our Canadian psycho and in fact have cut off all ties to him.”

“How do you know he killed them?”

“We don’t for sure, but we also just learned that a house where we believe Waller was meeting with a midlevel terrorist cell member was blown up. He might’ve lost a couple of guys, at least the entourage he has here is different from the one he normally travels with. We think maybe the Islamists double-crossed him, tried to kill him, and he retaliated. At least that’s one theory, and probably the right one. It’s not like I see the guy taking out the nuke freaks to save the world. He just cares about money.”

“But, Frank, there’s no reason to believe that he won’t try again with a different group of buyers.”

“Don’t think so. This whole thing has drawn way too much attention now in places the guy doesn’t want the spotlight. He’s too smart to try anything now. He’ll crawl back in his sex slavery ring hole for a few years. By then his access to the U-235 will have dried up too. We believed he was getting it from the stockpile the Russians were dismantling and sending to the Americans under a disarmament treaty. In a few years that supply will be all gone. That’s why the higher-ups no longer consider the op worth doing.”