doesn’t become you, Dom.”
“You may not agree with him on everything, but he’s got good instincts in the field.”
“No, he has great instincts in the field. But so do I. And this time he’s just wrong.”
“And why is that?”
They both whirled around to see Whit standing in the doorway that led to the small kitchen.
“I thought you were out,” said Reggie.
Whit came forward and sank down on the couch next to Dominic. “I was and now I’m back. So keep talking. This is really informative.”
“By the way, Bill knew someone had searched his room.”
“Really? Guy’s better than I thought. I’ll have to keep that in mind.” Whit continued to stare at her.
“Do that. At least for future missions.”
“Back to this mission. And your relationship with little Billy?”
“Okay. I’ll lay it out for you. I have a short time frame to get to Kuchin. The whole mission is predicated on him going where I want him to go at a certain time and day.”
Whit tugged his jacket off and tossed it on a small table in one corner. “Just get to the part we don’t know and are thinking the worst about, meaning you and bloody Bill!”
“Jealousy,” said Reggie simply. “It’s the fastest way to reel a man in. He thinks I’m spending too much time with Bill, Kuchin gets antsy. He’s already reacted that way. That gives me the upper hand. He’ll come at me hard: ‘Janie, go to this beautiful place with me and that beautiful place and have this lovely dinner and drink that lovely wine.’ And it’ll come to the point that wherever I suggest that we go, he’ll do it, without hesitation. So having Bill around actually made my job far easier. I don’t have to overtly throw myself at Kuchin, which is very good, because a man like that will see through that sort of thing nine times out of ten. He believes he’s coming after me, it’s a whole different story. His defenses are down.” She paused. “But if you two male-female experts have a better way, I’m listening.”
Dominic looked over at Whit, who was still staring at Reggie. “So this is all tied to the mission?” Whit asked.
“It’s always been tied to the mission, Whit. Everything I do in my bloody life has been tied to the mission. If you’d get your brains out of your crotch you might be able to see that. Or did I misinterpret your last remark back at Harrowsfield? What was it again?”
“A glimpse of thigh and a pretty face, more or less,” said Whit with a smirk.
“What are you two talking about?” demanded Dominic as he stared between them.
“Nothing, Dom,” she said.
“Are you two having an affair?” Dominic persisted.
Whit laughed. “Not for lack of trying, at least on my part, but Sister Reggie here’s having nothing to do with it.” The smile quickly faded from his lips. “Okay, Reg, what you just said makes sense. Jealousy.”
“Jealousy,” she repeated, staring him down. “It works with most men.”
Whit looked away. “I’m hungry. You want anything?”
“No, but I do have a request.”
He sat up, looking interested. “Shoot.”
“I need some new equipment.”
Dominic looked at her warily. “What sort of equipment?”
“Stuff that’ll project pictures on a wall. Can you get it?”
“I don’t see why not,” said Dom. “There are big electronics stores in Avignon.”
“Then get it, as fast as you can.”
Whit looked confused. “What do you have in mind?”
She rose. “You’ll see.”
When she got back to her villa, Fedir Kuchin was standing in the middle of the narrow road, his arms open wide in welcome to her.
She wanted to place a bullet between his eyes. Instead she sighed, forced another smile, and climbed out of her car.
CHAPTER
42
SHAW CLOSED the door behind him and said angrily, “What the hell are you doing here, Frank? There’s no face-to-face during an op, you know that.”
Frank Wells remained sitting in the chair, his face looking slightly pinched. “You went out to Les Baux-de-Provence today.”
“I know I did,” snapped Shaw. “So?”
“Why’d you do that?”
“Because Waller had invited Janie to go with him on his private tour, and I couldn’t let that happen.” He held up a hand when Frank looked ready to say something. “It has nothing to do with her personally. It would’ve just been a logistical headache to have her in the way when we do the extraction.”
“Yeah, well, I got bad news on that. It’s why I’m here. Didn’t want to tell you over the phone.”
Shaw dropped his room key on the table and sank onto the bed. “What bad news?”
“They’re pulling the op. Amy Crawford and the strike team are already wheels up and out of the country.”
Shaw rose so fast he almost hit his head on the low ceiling. “What! Why?”
“Things have changed.”
“Changed! How could they have changed? Waller’s looking to sell nukes. Crazy people are trying to buy them from him so they can go and blow up a chunk of the world. How can that possibly change?”
“It does if he’s no longer trying to sell them. And in fact he might very well have killed the people he was trying to do business with.”
“How do you know that?”
“Found two bodies in a lake that match the descriptions of the Islamic guys who were dealing with Waller. They both exhibited signs of extreme torture. Plus we got chatter on the communication lines that indicates the Muslims are no longer working with our Canadian psycho and in fact have cut off all ties to him.”
“How do you know he killed them?”
“We don’t for sure, but we also just learned that a house where we believe Waller was meeting with a midlevel terrorist cell member was blown up. He might’ve lost a couple of guys, at least the entourage he has here is different from the one he normally travels with. We think maybe the Islamists double-crossed him, tried to kill him, and he retaliated. At least that’s one theory, and probably the right one. It’s not like I see the guy taking out the nuke freaks to save the world. He just cares about money.”
“But, Frank, there’s no reason to believe that he won’t try again with a different group of buyers.”
“Don’t think so. This whole thing has drawn way too much attention now in places the guy doesn’t want the spotlight. He’s too smart to try anything now. He’ll crawl back in his sex slavery ring hole for a few years. By then his access to the U-235 will have dried up too. We believed he was getting it from the stockpile the Russians were dismantling and sending to the Americans under a disarmament treaty. In a few years that supply will be all gone. That’s why the higher-ups no longer consider the op worth doing.”
“But it was a snatch-and-tell. He could still lead us to the terrorist cell.”
“Not if he killed them all. The one guy we were really interested in, Abdul-Majeed, has fallen completely off the radar. Our intel concludes that Waller probably got to him too. Bottom line is there’s no one left for him to rat on.”
“But he’s a bad guy. You just said he’ll go back to his sex slavery business now. He has to be stopped.”
Frank rose. “That’s not our concern. We’re officially pulling our tent on this one.” He held out a packet of materials. “I got your new assignment here. Early morning flight out to Madrid, then on to wild Rio for a while. You’ll get briefed on the way, but it has to do with Chinese ties to some violent antidemocratic leaders in that hemisphere. My counterpart in South America will be meeting you and going over more specifics.” When Shaw didn’t take the packet, Frank dropped it on the desk.
Shaw was shaking his head. “Tomorrow morning? That’s not enough time for me to wind things up here.”
Frank, who was heading to the door, stopped and turned back to him. “Wind things up? What the hell is there to wind up?”
br />
“Give me an extra week here, Frank.”
“A week! Forget it. Your orders are in that packet. You go tomorrow. It’s all set.”
“And if I don’t?”
Frank drew closer to him. “Do you really want to go there?”
“I think I’m going to have to.”
“Because of her? I thought you said there was nothing there.”
“I said there was nothing romantic there. But I can’t leave the lady alone with Waller. That’d be like signing her death warrant.”
“Oh come on. We’ve had this discussion. The guy is not going to try anything with her. This is Provence. And the lady’s not some abandoned young girl from a mud-hut town in Guangdong Province that nobody cares about. She’s not in his wheelhouse at all.”
“If the guy wants her, he’ll take her. That I know. And I’m pretty sure he wants her. So just run some interference for me with the guys up top. Just buy me some time.”
But Frank had already turned away. “Be on the flight tomorrow, Shaw. And stop playing guardian angel. The look doesn’t wear well on you.”
Shaw kicked the door shut behind the man.
CHAPTER
43
I MISSED YOU, Janie.”
Waller took her hand.
“I’m sure you had plenty to keep you busy.”
“If I may inquire, where did you go today?”
Reggie drew a shallow breath and said, “I went to Les Baux-de-Provence to look at the Goya exhibit.”
His smile disappeared. “That is most unfortunate. As I explained, I was hoping to take you there myself.”
“I’m sorry,” she said curtly.
“And you went alone?”
“Evan—”
“I see. I’m sure you two had a wonderful time,” he said with a trace of bitterness.
“Look, I’m sorry. It was just a spur-of-the-moment thing. There are lots of other sites we can visit around here.”
This seemed to bolster his spirits. “You’re right. Would you then join me for dinner tonight? At my home? I would be honored. I have engaged a local chef.”
“I actually already have plans. Bill’s coming over and we’re going to cook at my place.”
“So Bill is coming over. I see. I don’t suppose you could cancel on Bill?”
“No, but I don’t have any plans for tomorrow or the next day.”
“Then let me claim that time right now and also every day after that. We can go to Roussillon in the morning, in fact.”
Reggie pretended to think about this. “I guess that’ll be fine, but let’s take it one day at a time.”
“Excellent.” He bent to kiss her hand.
Reggie turned when she saw the slender man emerge from Kuchin’s villa and start toward them. She noted he walked with a slight limp. He was dressed in blue slacks and a sleeveless yellow sweater over a white shirt.
Kuchin straightened. “Ah, Alan, let me introduce you to this lovely young lady. Alan Rice, Jane Collins.”
They shook hands.
“Alan is my business associate. He works all the time, but I succeeded in convincing him to join me here for at least a brief time.”
She said, “It was a good decision, Alan. There are few places like Provence.”
“So Evan keeps telling me.”
“Well, enjoy your time here.”
“I plan to.”
Later, Reggie was sitting on her bed and staring down at the tile floor. In a few days it would all happen. And during that intervening time she could make no mistakes, had to hit her marks to perfection, and still it might all go wrong. She knew that she had Fedir Kuchin where she wanted him. But she had been doing this long enough to know that not everything was always as it seemed to be. That he was cunning was without doubt, so she could not assume that she had deceived him fully. He was playing the role of the elder suitor quite admirably, but that was all it might be, a role.
She put her face in her hands. It was not easy, the career she had chosen. You literally couldn’t trust anyone. And there was something else on her mind.
The potential for evil lurks in all of us.
Though she’d openly disagreed with Kuchin’s opinion, in fact she could see some truth in it. Indeed, at a certain level what she did could be seen as evil. Judge, jury, executioner. Who was she to make those decisions? What gave her the right? And then there was the reason why she had chosen this life for herself. The image of her dead brother flashed across her mind. Only twelve, so innocent. A tragic loss.
She hurried to the bathroom, turned on the tap, and ran some water over her face. She had to stop thinking about such things. She had to focus.
She was playing Bill against Kuchin for the benefit of the mission. All the time she spent with either man was because of the mission, she told herself. Bill Young was merely a convenient piece on the game board, nothing more or less.
There was a momentary disconnect in her mind, like a flash of lightning’s effect on a TV. When her synapses started operating again, the revelation almost made her sick.
If Kuchin thinks I’m really interested in Bill, he might…
A part of Reggie was cold and calculating. That part said collateral damage happened, but if the mission was successful the sacrifice was justified. Another part of her was repulsed by an innocent person’s possibly dying just so she could claim her target. That, for her, was the epitome of the very evil she professed to be fighting against.
Reconcile that, Reggie.
Yet she had already set everything in motion. How could she possibly stop it now?
CHAPTER
44
REGGIE STRIPPED OFF her clothes and showered, scrubbing so hard it felt like her skin was peeling off her bones. Afterwards she dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, drifted downstairs, found her market basket, and headed up the hill to town. She left through a rear door that opened onto the cobblestone path so she would not have to deal with her neighbor.
An hour later she returned, her basket full of the ingredients for the meal. She prepped the kitchen, freshened up in the bathroom, and put on a white skirt and a light blue tank top. She remained barefoot, as she liked the coolness of the tile floor against her soles. She took time with her hair and face in the bathroom mirror, taking five whole minutes to decide on a bracelet and earrings.
She froze in the middle of this, staring at her made-up face and wide eyes made wider by the magic of eyeliner and mascara.
It’s jealousy. Playing one against the other. That’s all it is.
Whit’s voice sparked across her brain. “So this is all tied to the mission?”
She kept staring at her image in the mirror. “It’s always about the mission.” One more monster ticked off the list. That was all she wanted. And however she got there it didn’t matter.
The sound of the front doorbell almost made her collapse. She looked at her watch. Eight o’clock on the dot. She finished with her primping and rushed down the corkscrew stairs. When she opened the front door Shaw held up two bottles of wine. “The vintner in town swore these were the two best reds he had if my goal was to shamelessly impress a remarkably sophisticated lady of means.”