David Baldacci - Deliver Us From Evil

“So in effect employees of these companies are selling the images to people who want them for reasons unrelated to why the surveillance was conducted in the first place?”

“Exactly. They let it be known discreetly that they can run checks for the right price and the picture is delivered for a fee. Some have gone a step further and the actual companies that collect this data and store it are also selling images to third parties. Apparently the law is vague in some countries, or at least inconsistent enough about the uses that can be made of the stored information to allow sufficient wiggle room for the companies to do this. And the original clients either don’t care or more likely are unaware of these additional uses of the data.

“And that’s where we came in. We sent one well-known server platform covering a number of countries in Europe the digitized images taken from your drawings and the photo of the woman. They ran it through every file they had. We didn’t get a hit the first go-round, but we did the second.”

“And the hit?”

Rice keyed in some commands on his computer and turned the screen around for Kuchin to see. “It was only one hit, but it was better than nothing. Zurich. Outside a hotel, seven months ago,” Rice explained.

Kuchin sat forward and studied the picture. That was the tall man all right.

“But who is he?”

“We don’t know yet.”

Kuchin slapped the table with his palm. “Then this is useless to me.”

“Wait, Evan, please, there’s more. Look at the woman beside him.”

Kuchin did. She was tall, slender, and blonde. Then he noted that the woman’s arm was touching Shaw’s hand. He shot a glance at Rice. “They are together?”

“Apparently so, yes. We checked with the hotel. They would give out no information on either of them, so we next ran her photo through the image data banks.”

“And you got a hit?”

“More than that.” Rice handed him a file. “I know you prefer paper to digital.”

Kuchin took the file, but did not open it. “Her name?”

“Katie James.”

CAN’T WE at least eat our meal before the pretend time is over?” said Reggie earnestly.

“Does it mean that much to you?”

“Actually it does.”

Shaw rifled a glance at the waiter hovering nearby. “Okay, this is probably not the best place to do it anyway.”

Their food came and they talked about things other people would normally talk about over a meal out. Another bottle of wine, this one a red, was ordered and fully drunk. Coffees followed and they shared a dessert that had coconut and ribbons of white icing on top. Shaw paid the bill with a credit card.

“A. Shaw?” said Reggie as she spied the name on the plastic. “What’s the A stand for?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

He signed on the dotted line and they rose and left. The evening was still warm, at least by London standards, though now Reggie wished she had brought the sweater. Noticing her chill bumps, Shaw took off his jacket and draped it around her shoulders. It hung down like a dress.

“Forty-six extra long?” she said, gripping the material.

“Something like that. How’re the feet?”

“Depends on where we’re headed.”

“My hotel’s in that direction. Ten-minute cab ride.”

She looked startled. “Your hotel?”

“Or we can go to your place.”

“Why does it have to be either one?”

“Or we can just go to another public place and talk about it and hope nobody overhears us.”

Reggie thought of the sex-crazed couple in the rooms above her. “My place is not that quiet,” she said.

“Mine is.”

“Where exactly is it?”

“The Savoy. It recently reopened. Excellent river views. Very nice.”

“What did you tell me before about being forward? Going to your hotel room this late at night seems to fall into that category.”

“That was before, this is now. We can cab it. It’s down in the Strand.”

“I know where the damn Savoy is.”

“Then let’s go.”

An efficient cabbie with “the knowledge,” as Londoners referred to the mental map cabdrivers were required to learn over several years, whisked them along Piccadilly, over to Haymarket, around Lord Nelson and his army of pigeons, and onto the Strand.

“It’s always puzzled me why the only place one drives on the right in all of Britain is down the little street to the Savoy entrance,” said Shaw.

“It’s because the hotel’s forecourt was too narrow for coachmen to pull up to the front doors if they had to hug the left side.” Shaw stared at her in mild amusement. She said sharply, “What? I am English, after all.”

They walked through the lobby, up a flight of stairs, and rode an elevator car up to Shaw’s room. He closed the door behind them, dropped his keys on the table, and pointed to a chair for Reggie to take while he sat on the edge of the bed.

“Wretched heels.” She slipped off her shoes and rubbed her aching feet. “Now what?”

“Now we talk survival.”

“Yours or mine?”

“Both, if we’re lucky.”

“Maybe it was just me, but your boss didn’t seem all that keen on working with us. It was more like he wanted to arrest us.”

“Should he want to do that?”

Reggie’s features stiffened a bit. “I’m not going to think for him.”

Shaw opened the room safe housed in a cabinet and pulled out a paper file. He flicked through some pages. “Fedir Kuchin. I read up on him.”

“I could have saved you the trouble. We have lots of paper on him.”

“People believed he was dead; killed in an uprising in Ukraine years before the Wall fell.”

“Carefully orchestrated escape strategy. A number of them did that.”

Shaw looked over the top of the file at her. “A number of them? Interesting word choice. What exactly is it that you and your comrades in arms do at Harrowsfield?”

“Something that I can’t tell you about. Ever.”

“You’re going to have to tell somebody.”

“Why? Have you already told your boss about the place?”

“I haven’t told him anything about anything. What I’m telling you is that you might need a friend on this.”

“And you’re that friend?” she scoffed.

“I didn’t say I was that friend. I don’t know enough to know whether I want to be your friend or not.”

“Meaning you might end up against us?”

“Just talk to me.”

Reggie rose and paced in her bare feet, scrunching her toes against the soft carpet, working out the cramps. “It’s not that simple. Nothing about this is simple, Shaw.”

“It’s only as hard as you make it.”

“Oh come on, that’s bullshit logic and you know it.”

“Maybe it is, but I’m finding the words hard to come by to convince you to trust me. I thought maybe I’d earned some of that back in Gordes.”

“That was then, this is now,” she said, throwing Shaw’s own words back at him.

“I guess risking life and limb doesn’t mean as much as it used to.”

Reggie stopped pacing and sat down next to him on the bed. She looked down at the floor and sighed. “No, it actually does.”

“So what’s the problem? I know Kuchin is a bad guy.”

“But you know what we were going to do to him.”

“Seemed pretty obvious.”

“I take it you don’t play by those rules?”

“Not unless it’s either them or me. Then I’ll do what I have to, to walk away.”

“That’s not exactly splitting hairs. It’s a big difference in philosophy.”

“Like I said before, I don’t have the authority to arrest anyone.”

“Right, sure.” She stood and drew over to the window and opened the drapes.