David Baldacci - Deliver Us From Evil

He took out a small kit, filled a syringe with his special concoction, and shot it into one of his veins. Normally this would give him at least a momentary rush of euphoria, of invincibility. He swore it made him think more clearly too, which he desperately needed at this moment.

Yet nothing happened. Well, something did occur. He felt even more depressed. He threw the empty syringe across the room, where it struck a wall and broke. The last time Fedir Kuchin had suffered defeat was back in the Ukraine, when he had been forced to fake his death and flee his homeland one step ahead of the masses that would take their revenge on his years of terror. At least they would call it terror. He would call it something else. His duty. His job. Perhaps his destiny.

Though he lived the good life of a successful westernized capitalist now, where personal liberties were highly prized, Kuchin, in his heart, would forever believe that only a select few should rule all others. And the way one accomplished that was with selectively and effectively used power. Most people were only capable of being followers. Even in the West only a few ever rose to riches and leadership positions. In his command back in Ukraine Kuchin could pick out, within five minutes of meeting them, those of his men who would forever be sheep and those few who would be the shepherds. And he had never been wrong.

Yes, the West was the part of the world where there was opportunity for all. Kuchin could only sneer at this. He had been a leader in his homeland and he had become a leader here. A follower over there would be merely a follower over here. Sheep didn’t change because they were given opportunities.

And yet will I now be defeated again?

He could not stay here indefinitely. He could not keep his men here much longer without arousing suspicion. Washington, D.C., was perhaps the world’s most closely guarded city. There were policemen, spies, federal agents-probing, peering eyes everywhere. If they were looking for Kuchin he might be playing right into their hands. And yet if he left this city without Katie James he had nothing. He would be beaten. It was a guaranteed fate.

He grabbed a remote and turned on the TV. The news was on. The lead story was trouble in Afghanistan for the Americans and their allies. This both made him smile and also conjured up bitter memories of his own country’s devastating defeat in that ancient land.

The woman reporting on this story, he noted, was around fifty. Not the young, long-legged, and often bottle blondes who typically read off the teleprompter and had never been near the war zones they were “reporting” on. Her statements were succinct, informed, and told Kuchin in a short few moments that she knew what she was talking about. He assumed that Katie James, though she was younger and prettier than this woman, had these same attributes. From what he’d read of her background she had certainly been to every global hot spot in the last fifteen years. No teleprompter for her.

He refocused on the TV. Kuchin was anxious to see in more detail what sort of trouble the Americans were in. At least it would take him away from his own problems for a few moments. He had no inkling it would lead to the solution of at least one of those problems.

“This is Roberta McCormick reporting live from Kabul,” said the woman on the screen as she closed out her segment.

The name froze for an instant in Kuchin’s mind.

Roberta McCormick?

He leapt from his chair and raced across the room to where his soft-sided briefcase lay on the desk. He flipped it open and found the list.

On here were the names and addresses of the people who lived in D.C. who were known colleagues of Katie James. Kuchin had his men covering two of the residences because their owners were out of the country. The other two were supposedly in town and thus Kuchin had not allocated any surveillance at those places. He ran his eye down to the last name.

Roberta McCormick. She was supposed to be home but she was in Kabul, thousands of miles away. He had just seen that for himself. She lived in Georgetown, up near R Street, which was just outside the perimeter that Kuchin had set for his men. Her husband had passed away, her children were grown. She lived alone.

But perhaps her home was not empty right now.

MY GOD,” exclaimed Reggie as she and Shaw looked at the interior of the room.

Shaw said, “I feel like I just stepped back in time to the middle of the cold war.”

The lights had come on automatically when they walked into the room.

“Holy shit!” said Frank over the headset. He had seen what they were seeing through the feed from the camera strapped to Reggie’s chest. “This guy has issues.”

“You think?” said Shaw as he looked around at the Soviet flag, the old lockers, the battered desk, and the file cabinets. “Reggie, sweep the room so Frank can record it all on the camera.”

She did so, getting as close to as many objects as she could.

Shaw opened one of the lockers and saw the uniform that Kuchin had worn while with the KGB. He next searched the file cabinets and took out documents showing some of the atrocities that the man had exacted on innocent men, women, and children. Reggie captured all of this with her camera.

And then they found the film reel and projector. It took a few minutes to set up. As the film ran Shaw and Reggie said nothing. Not even Frank muttered a word. Finally, Reggie hit the off switch. “I can’t watch anymore,” she said as the face of the dead child faded on the screen.

When Shaw looked over at her he saw the tears in the woman’s eyes. He put the projector away but slipped the film reel in his bag.

“We need to see anything else, Frank?” he said.

When Frank answered his voice was strained. “No, good to go.”

A couple of minutes later, Shaw and Reggie were walking down the streets of Montreal. A car picked them up and took them to a low-rise office building about a half mile away. Frank was waiting for them there.

They all sat in silence for a few moments, staring down at their hands.

Shaw looked up. “Okay, this confirms a lot. The guy is a psycho-not that we ever doubted that.”

“But what did we find that might help us get to him?” asked Reggie.

Shaw looked over at Frank. “Alan Rice?”

“The plane came back from France. That we know. It landed at the airport in Montreal. Neither Rice nor Kuchin were on it. And Rice is not at his home or office or any other place we can find. He’s either dead or more likely laying low. To go any further than that we would have to involve the local authorities, and we don’t want to go there. At least not yet. Might actually make matters worse.”

“So we can’t use Rice as leverage?” asked Reggie.

“It’s Kuchin or nothing, it seems.”

“But where is he?” she asked. “We took a risk in breaking into his place and really came away with nothing that’ll help us find him.”

Shaw and Frank exchanged glances.

“There’s been no sign of him since France,” said Frank. “You know it was private wings so it’s conceivable he never actually left France, or the plane made an unscheduled stop en route to Canada. The wings have been on the ground here ever since. But he could easily hire another plane under a fake name.”

“So he could be anywhere,” said Reggie.

“But now we have evidence of his involvement with the KGB in Ukraine,” pointed out Frank.

“We already knew that,” shot back Reggie. “And I’m no solicitor, but I hardly think the courts will allow in the evidence we got because I’m pretty certain our burglary wasn’t authorized.”

Shaw said, “She’s right about that.”