David Baldacci - Deliver Us From Evil

“Just like that?”

“Like I said, just chill and pretty soon you get out of here.”

“Where’s Waller?” Shaw said sharply.

“Who?”

“Now I don’t believe you again.”

The man locked the door behind him, leaving Shaw to puzzle all this over once more. He rocked back and forth in the chair and quickly found that it was bolted to the slab. These folks had put some thought into this. He wondered how far away from Gordes he was. He had no idea how long he’d been unconscious. He might not even be in France any longer.

If these guys weren’t with Waller, who were they? No, of course they had to be with him despite his captor’s feigned ignorance. He also wondered what Frank was thinking. When Shaw didn’t show up at the airport Frank would go to his hotel room. Then he’d conclude that Shaw had screwed him and gone AWOL.

He leaned back in the chair and took a deep breath. He was out of options. And Janie was probably with Waller right now. Or maybe dead.

YOU SEEM preoccupied.”

Reggie looked over at Waller as they walked along the streets of Roussillon. They had driven separately, with her following the man’s caravan of vehicles. Roussillon held all the charm of the typical Provençal village but with the added burst of ochre on most of the buildings.

“Just tired. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”

“I hope nothing is troubling you so that you cannot sleep.”

The man was dressed in ironed jeans, a white cotton shirt that he wore out, and leather sandals. A Panama hat covered his hairless head, protecting his pale skin from the sun. It gave him a jaunty, relaxed appearance that Reggie was having trouble discounting for some reason.

“Probably just delayed jet lag. This village really is beautiful. The colors are so different from anything I’ve seen.”

“My mother was born here,” he said proudly. “I remember it well from when I was a child.”

Reggie paused to study a painting in a window, but she was really thinking of something else. She wondered how Fedir Kuchin had been able to escape from behind the Iron Curtain to come here as a young boy, or rather how his parents had with him in tow. Travel was severely restricted back then. His father must have been very high up in the Communist Party to be allowed such freedom. She also wondered how a Frenchwoman from a rural town in Provence had come to marry a Ukrainian communist. Yet perhaps he was telling her a lie. That was actually more likely.

“You like the painting?” Waller asked over her shoulder.

Reggie continued to study the peaceful harbor scene depicted on the canvas. “It’s far more pleasant than Señor Goya’s works.”

“Ah, but this painter will never have the reputation of Goya. Goya did the world an important service.”

She turned to him. “How so?”

“He lived during difficult times. War, poverty, cruelty. Thus he painted nightmares. As I told you before, using oils on canvas, he reminded the world that there is evil. That is an important lesson that we should never forget, but unfortunately we do all the time.”

“Have you experienced such things?”

“I have read of such things, and they are to be avoided if at all possible.”

“But sometimes I guess it’s not possible.”

“You are an American, so of course you would say such things. You are a superpower, you can do what you want.”

Reggie wasn’t sure if she saw a spark of envy in his eyes when he said this or if it was her imagination. He took her by the arm.

“I understand that dear Bill has left us.”

Reggie almost pulled her arm away. “He had to go home. Some family issue.”

“Then I will do what I can to fill any void.”

She gave him a searching look and then forced a smile. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“I never do that.”

“So where did you and your family stay when you were here?”

“I will show you.”

They walked on, through the center of town. A quarter of a kilometer past that, Waller led her down some worn steps and stopped at a small cottage with a wooden door and two windows in front.

“There,” he said.

“It’s very quaint.”

“My father died in that cottage.”

“God, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I’m sure he was too.”

He took her arm again. “Now, for the lunch. Down this way. All is arranged. We must eat light because the meal tonight will be substantial.”

“I take it you like to be in control.”

“There are leaders and there are followers. It is the natural order of things. Would you want a follower leading or a leader following?”

“I guess it depends on where they wanted you to go.”

“You are a strange young woman.”

“I’ve heard worse.”

“I meant that as a compliment.”

His grip tightened on her arm. As they walked along Reggie found herself consumed with worry over what had happened to Bill Young. If Kuchin had harmed him? Then even killing the man would not be enough. Nothing would, if an innocent man had died because of her.

I’VE GOT TO USE the john,” Shaw called out into the darkness. “Now.”

A minute went by and he thought that no one was going to respond. Then the door opened and the same man appeared. “I told you about the toilet in the corner over there.”

“I don’t think I can hit the bowl from here. Go figure.”

The man stepped forward. “Then I guess I’ll have to untie you.”

“I guess you will.”

“Firing line,” the man reminded him.

“Right, got it.” Shaw kept his gaze dead on the man as he approached, his muscles tensing, his mind burning through every possible angle and point of attack on the primary and secondary targets. He would put the man between him and the shooter and work his way out of here. It was as solid a plan as he could concoct under the circumstances.

Unfortunately, he never got a chance to execute it.

The man punched the syringe in his arm, right through his shirt.

When Shaw awoke, he was on the floor, his arms tucked under him. He slowly rose, flexing his limbs, trying to bleed circulation back into them. He did his business at the toilet and looked around. The room was empty except for the bolted-to-the-floor chair and a mattress lying in one corner and the toilet. He paced off the parameters of the square. Eight by eight. Sixty-four square feet with a ceiling that was not much higher than he was tall. Walls were stone and solid, no chinks in the mortar, slab floor. He lifted his hand up. The ceiling was plaster.

A rattling sound behind him made Shaw whirl around in time to see a tray of food come through a hinged slot in the lower part of the door that he hadn’t noticed before.

He picked up the tray and carried it over to the mattress, sat down and ate, finishing off the bottle of water in a couple of long gulps. He examined the residue on the tray. No utensils, so no sharp edges. Styrofoam plate, plastic bottle.

A few minutes later a voice called out, “Slide it through.”

He rose and passed the tray through the slot. It was barely three inches high and he had to lay the bottle of water down. He resumed his pacing, examining every square inch of his prison. His gaze returned to the toilet. He walked over, lifted the tank lid in back, and felt around. A minute later he’d worked free the long piece of metal. He walked over to the door and examined the lock.

Deadbolt. Made things problematic but maybe not impossible.

Plopping down in the chair, he began fashioning the metal into the instrument he needed to attack the lock. Well, actually two instruments since it was a deadbolt. He had no idea what time it was, day or night. They’d taken his watch. But he did start counting off the seconds in his head. He would work from the notion that the meal he’d been given was either lunch or dinner and time it out from there. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than nothing.