David Baldacci: Deliver Us From Evil

Reggie passed by columns of ragged English boxwoods, their urine odor sweeping over her. Even though it was very late in the spring, a chilly breeze nudged at her back as she trudged along. She zipped up her worn leather jacket, which had belonged to her older brother. Though he’d only been twelve at the time of his death, he had been over six feet tall and the jacket enveloped her, even as his death had shattered her. She still felt emotionally brittle, like a pane of cracked glass that would disintegrate with the very next impact.

After a walk of a quarter mile she pushed open the door of what had once been the estate’s greenhouse. The smell of peat and mulch and rotting plants still drifted into her nostrils even though there had been no gardener or gardening here for decades. She passed by broken glass and loose boards that had dropped from the ceiling. Shadows were cast in all directions as the sun continued its descent into the English countryside. The chilly breeze turned still colder as it was funneled through the small openings in the windows and the walls, fluttering spiderwebs and rustling the disintegrating remnants of a horticulturist’s paradise.

Reggie reached the set of double doors set at an angle into the corner of the structure. She inserted her key in the heavy padlock, tugged open the doors, and pulled the chain on the bare light bulb set just inside the revealed space. A moment later the passage she stepped down into became dimly illuminated and smelled strongly of damp soil, making her feel slightly sick. She touched dirt, walked downward at a twenty-degree angle for another fifteen paces where the tunnel leveled out. She had no idea who’d carved it out of the earth or why, but it did come in handy now.

She reached the end of the passage where a number of mattresses had been placed on end and positioned front-to-back. A small table was set against a dirt sidewall. On the table was a stack of paper and a small battery-powered fan. She picked up the top sheet and, using a clip, fastened it to a cord that hung between the two sidewalls of the tunnel. Next to the stack were a number of ear mufflers and safety goggles. She slipped a pair of mufflers around her neck, where they dangled loosely, and put on the protective eyewear.

On the sheet of paper was the blackened image of a man with black rings running around it. She paced off thirty feet, turned, took out her pistol from its belt holster, checked the load, slipped the ear mufflers on, assumed her preferred firing stance, took aim, and triggered off her full mag. There was very little ventilation down here and the acrid burn of the ordnance was immediately absorbed into her nostrils. Bits of dirt dislodged by the gun’s discharge fell from between cracks in the weathered boards forming the tunnel’s beamed ceiling. She coughed, whipped the air with her hand to clear the smoke and dust, and walked forward to examine her marksmanship, pausing for a moment to turn on the fan. It lazily oscillated back and forth, but took its time in clearing away the haze. So much for first-class shooting facilities.

Seven of her eleven rounds were placed where she wanted them, in the torso. All would have hit vital organs if the target had been real. Two shots were in the head, also where she had aimed. One round had fallen outside a proper kill zone by a millimeter. The last shot had missed by an unacceptable margin.

She replaced the target with a fresh one, reloaded, and did it again. Ten out of eleven. She did it again. Eleven for eleven. She did it once more. Nine out of eleven. Despite the efforts of the fan, the tunnel was now heavy with the smoke and her lungs felt congested.

“Bloody hell,” she barked, as she hacked and whipped the murky haze with her hand. Reggie figured she could blame the last few misses on not being able to actually breathe or even see the damn target. She trudged back down the tunnel wishing that they could have a proper gun range, but the tunnel was the only place where the sound of the shots wouldn’t carry to a pair of ears that might in turn contact the local constabulary. Doddering academics were not supposed to have penchants for firearms. She was surprised to see Whit standing by the doors leading back into the greenhouse.

“Reckoned you’d be down here. How’s your aim?” he said.

“Bloody awful.” She closed the double doors and locked them.

He leaned against a glass-topped storage cabinet that had once been used to hold seedlings. In the deepening chill his breath came out as small vapor. “Well, don’t get your knickers in a knot. Your choice of weapon isn’t often a gun. You’re more the knife and pillow gal. I’m the nine-millimeter man.”

She frowned at his bluntness. “You really can be an idiot sometimes, Whit.”

“I’m not making light of it. But you’re wound tighter than anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Then you need to get out more. I’m actually pretty laid-back.”

“So what do you think about this Fedir Kuchin bloke?”

“I think we’ll be seeing him in Provence soon enough.”

“Little close on the planning end. I’d prefer some more time.”

She shrugged. “The way the professor tells it, the viper doesn’t come out in the open very often. This may be our only chance.”

“Your cover has to be top-notch. This guy has the resources to check deep.”

“Our people have always come through before.” She waited, sensing that he had more to say.

“I want in on this on the ground,” he said suddenly, then paused, probably to study her reaction to these words. “Maybe you can nip over to the prof and talk to him?”

Reggie slipped her pistol into its belt holster and wiped her hands off on a rag she drew from a workbench. “The plan’s still preliminary. There’s time for that.”

“You know how Mallory thinks. He fancies you as always the first choice for the tip of the spear.”

“You’ve had your share of mission leads, Whit,” she said firmly.

“I did, before you came along. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not blaming you. You’re excellent, really brilliant at this stuff. And since it’s mostly old blokes we go after, having a lady in the lead makes sense for getting their guards down. But I’m not bad either. And the thing is, I didn’t sign on for this job to carry the bags all the time. I’d like to get me whacks in too.”

She considered this for a few moments. “I’ll talk to the professor. Kuchin isn’t a nonagenarian Nazi who’ll get duped by a pretty face and a glimpse of thigh, now is he?”

Whit grinned and moved closer, running his gaze over her. “Don’t sell yourself short, Reg. That stuff works for most men. Young and old.”

She smiled and lightly smacked him on the cheek. “Thanks for the offer, but shove off.” Before he could take another step toward her, Reggie passed by him and set off back toward the mansion. She made only one other stop: the estate’s graveyard. It was situated a respectful distance from the main house, past a stand of birch and nearly surrounded by a hedge of stout English yew. The headstones were darkened by the passage of time, and it seemed even colder here, as though the corpses below could somehow extend their chilly influence to the surface.

She stood in front of one grave and, as she usually did, read off the ancient marker.

“Laura R. Campion, Born 1779, Died 1804. An angel sent on to Heaven.” She had no idea if she was related to Laura R. Campion, or whether the woman’s middle name was Regina. She’d only been twenty-five when she’d passed, not so unusual back then. Perhaps she’d perished in childbirth as so many women from those times did. On discovering this grave marker one morning while walking around the estate, she’d eagerly set out to find other Campions buried here. There were none, though other family names were repeated across the burial plots. She’d researched Laura R. Campion on the Internet and at the library but found nothing. Thomas Campion had been a poet born in the 1500s, and one of his best-known works had referred to a woman named Laura, but there was no connection that Reggie could see.