David Baldacci - Deliver Us From Evil

“So we just fob off on them the job we set out to do?” said Reggie. “Why should they have to deal with him?”

Mallory eyed her with interest. “Are you really thinking why should this Shaw fellow have to deal with him?”

Reggie’s face reddened. “That is not what I said, Professor.”

“And there’s no guarantee they will go after him,” protested Whit. “They might have other things on their agenda.”

Mallory turned to him. “There are no guarantees about anything we do, Whit. And I believe this is the best we can do. At least currently.”

“Well, I disagree.”

“I don’t mind disagreement so long as you do not turn it into unilateral action.”

“Well, what if Kuchin ends up walking free?”

“There are many men like him out there. I will not jeopardize catching all of them in order to take one down.”

Whit snapped, “But we’ve already shown him the shit from his past. Now all we need to do is kill the bastard. A rifle shot from long distance. Poison in his morning coffee. Stick the prick in the street with an umbrella tipped with poison, like they did that Bulgarian fellow.”

Mallory shook his head. “But since the authorities presumably will know who he is, they will investigate his death and past and publicize their results to the world-that he is indeed the Butcher of Kiev. And all others will be warned.”

“All others?” scoffed Whit. “You think these assholes send out newsletters to each other? Look out, fellow scum, the good guys are gunning for you? I’ve never bought that rationale before, Prof, and I sure as hell don’t buy it now. You’re saying we as good as let him go free forever.”

“No, I said we can let others handle it for now.”

Reggie spoke up. “I think I side with Whit on this, but the problem is that Kuchin will dig in so deep now we’ll never be able to find him. He probably has safe houses all over the world.”

“Since we have limited resources, that makes all the more reason to move on to someone else. But for now, I think all of you should relax and regroup. Dominic needs to heal physically.” Mallory looked at Reggie and then at Whit. “And you need to do so in other ways.”

“My head is on as straight as ever,” muttered Whit.

“I wasn’t necessarily talking about you,” replied Mallory.

“So me then?” exclaimed Reggie. She looked darkly at the man.

“Just everyone please take a rest,” said Mallory a trifle wearily.

“Even if the Ukrainian psychopath has us in his gunsights?” asked Whit.

“Yes, even then,” said the professor sharply. Mallory then rose and left the room.

“He’s under a lot of pressure,” said Liza defensively.

“We’re all under a lot of pressure, Liza,” rejoined Reggie.

“The operation in Provence cost a lot of money,” Liza continued. “And funds are getting harder and harder to come by. Miles spends a great deal of his time finding benefactors.”

Whit scowled at her. “Great, fine. I’ll cut my salary. Oh, that’s right, I don’t really get paid a bleeding quid to risk life and limb, now do I?”

“I didn’t mean it that way, Whit,” she said.

“I don’t think any of us mean anything we’re saying right now,” said Dominic.

Whit rose. “Speak for yourself, Dom. I meant it all.”

Before anyone could say anything he’d slammed the library door behind him.

REGGIE DECIDED against seeking refuge in the underground shooting range. This was principally because she didn’t think her still queasy stomach could take the pungent smells created by the weapon’s discharge in close quarters. Yet she didn’t want to remain inside the distinctly chilly atmosphere at Harrowsfield, so she settled on wandering the grounds. That of course led her to the graveyard and then to the gravesite of Laura R. Campion. She’d visited her mother’s and brother’s graves only once, years ago, and her father’s never. And yet here she was, for the hundredth time standing in front of what was almost certainly a stranger’s final resting place.

Are you going mad, Reg? Is this what it feels like?… Is this what happened to my… dad?

She had long ago convinced herself that her father had become insane, because that was the only way to explain what he’d done. But at a certain level she knew that might not be true. And it terrified her.

She said out loud, “Do you just go mad? Or are you simply born evil? Or do you simply slaughter because history gives you the chance?”

“Yes to all three,” said a voice.

Reggie nearly toppled over as she spun around, her mind recognizing the voice but also at the same instant wondering how it could possibly be.

Shaw stood at the edge of the yew hedge that nearly surrounded the cemetery.

“How?” she began, before Shaw put a finger to his lips as he came forward.

He stood beside her. “Good to see you again too.”

“How the hell did you get here?”

“The phone I gave back to you? GPS.”

“That’s impossible. We disable all GPS chips in our phones when we’re on mission to prevent just this sort of thing.”

“I know. That’s why I had to put one in it on the boat ride over.”

Reggie groaned and put a hand to her forehead. “I can’t believe I was that incredibly stupid.”

“You’re not stupid, you’re really good. But I’m pretty good at what I do too.”

Reggie looked around nervously. “If they find you here?”

“What? They’ll kill me?”

“We don’t do that,” she said sternly.

“Oh really?” He reached in his jacket pocket and slipped out the syringe he’d taken from Niles Jansen at the cottage where he had been held captive. He held it up.

Reggie looked from the syringe to Shaw. “What are you doing with that?”

“They were going to kill me with it, Reggie.”

“That’s impossible. We never told anyone-”

“The guy I knocked out said the order came from someone else.” He looked in the direction of the mansion. “Maybe somebody in the big house I passed?”

“Shaw, that is just not possible.”

“So do you guys just carry this stuff around with you?”

“That poison was intended for Kuchin. But we already had a syringe with us.”

“So why a second one?”

“In case something happened to the first, I imagine,” she said lamely.

“Or in case someone got in the way. Like me.”

“This is absurd. He actually said that somebody ordered him to kill you?”

“I’m not really in the habit of making stuff like that up. I mean, what would be the point?”

Reggie slowly moved away from him and slumped down on a weathered stone bench on the edge of the small cemetery. Shaw joined her there, drawing up his collar against the chilly air and cloudy skies that had come back to England with a vengeance as if to make up for the rare heat and sunshine.

“The plan was to let you go once we’d finished with Kuchin.”

“Plans change if the right person wants them to. Who here has that kind of clout?”

Reggie involuntarily glanced toward the mansion.

“So I was right. They’re in there. You got a name?”

“Why? Are you going to go in there and arrest him?”

“So it’s a he? Trouble is, I don’t actually have any authority to arrest anyone.”

“Then what? Kill him? You go after him you’ll have a lot of other people you’ll have to kill too.”

“Including you?”

“Yes,” she said without hesitation.

“Well, then I find my options limited.” He handed her the syringe. “Just make sure whoever you stick with that really needs killing. No second chances there.”

Reggie held the capped needle in her open palm while gazing up at Shaw. “Why did you come here?”