“At least the forecasters were right about the storm. Provided a good cover for my engineering sleight of hand. What did he say?”
“He spoke with his eyes. He knew.”
“Congratulations, it’s the last one, Reggie.”
Regina Campion, Reggie to her intimates, sat back against her seat and pulled off the cap, freeing her dyed blonde hair. “You’re wrong. It’s not the last one.”
“What do you mean? There are no Nazis like him left alive. Huber was the final bastard.”
She pulled the photo of Huber and Adolf Hitler from her pocket and gazed at it as the car raced along the dark roads outside Buenos Aires.
“But there will always be monsters. And we have to hunt down every one of them.”
CHAPTER
3
SHAW WAS HOPING the man would try to kill him, and he wasn’t disappointed. Seeing your freedom about to end with the distinct possibility of an execution date in your future just made some people a bit peeved. A few moments later the fellow was lying unconscious on the floor, the imprint of Shaw’s knuckles on his crushed cheek. Shaw’s backup appeared a minute later to take the man into custody. Shaw mentally crossed off his to-do list a heartless zealot who used unwitting children to blow up people who didn’t believe in the same god he did.
Ten minutes later he was in a car going to the airport in Vienna. Sitting next to him was his boss, Frank Wells. Frank looked like the meanest son of a bitch you would ever run into, principally because he was. He had the chest of a mastiff along with the beast’s growl. He favored cheap suits that were perpetually rumpled from the moment he put them on, and a sharp-edged hat that took one back several decades. Shaw believed that Frank was a man who’d been born in the wrong era. He would have done well in the 1920s and 1930s chasing criminals like Al Capone and John Dillinger with a tommy gun and not a search warrant or Miranda warning card in sight. His face was unshaven and his second chin lapped against his thick neck. He was in his fifties and looked older, with about eighty years of acid and anger built up in his psyche. He and Shaw had a love-hate relationship that, at least judging from the foul expression on the man’s face, had just swung back to hate.
A part of Shaw could understand that. One reason Frank favored wearing his hat inside cars and indoors was not simply to cover his egg-shaped bald head, but also to hide the dent in his skull where a pistol round fired by Shaw had penetrated. It was not an ideal way to begin a healthy friendship. And yet that nearly lethal confrontation was the only reason they were together now.
“You were a little slow on picking up Benny’s movements back there,” said Frank as he chewed on an unlit cigar.
“Considering ‘Benny’ bin Alamen is the holder of the number three slot on the Most Wanted Terrorists list, I’ll just take a moment to pat myself on the back.”
“Just saying is all, Shaw. Never know if it might come in useful next time.”
Shaw didn’t answer, primarily because he was tired. He looked out the window at the beautiful avenues of Vienna. He’d been many times to the Austrian capital, home to some of history’s greatest musical talent. Unfortunately, his travels here were always for work, and his most vivid memory of the town was not a moving concerto but rather almost dying from a large-caliber round that had come uncomfortably close to his head.
He rubbed at his hair, which had finally grown back. He’d had to scalp himself for a recent mission. He was only in his early forties, six and a half feet tall and in rock-hard shape, but when his hair had come back there’d been a sprinkle of gray at the temples and a dab at his sharp widow’s peak. Even for him the last six months had been, well, difficult.
As if reading his mind, Frank said, “So what happened with you and Katie James?”
“She went back to being a journalist and I went back to doing what I do.”
Frank rolled down the window, lit his cigar, and let the smoke drift out the opening. “That’s that, huh?”
“Why would there be any more than that?”
“You two went through some serious stuff together. Tends to draw people closer.”
“Well, it didn’t.”
“She called me, you know.”
“When?”
“While back. Said you left without saying good-bye. Just walked off into the sunrise.”
“Didn’t realize there was a law against that. And why didn’t she just call me?”
“Said she tried, but you’d changed your number.”
“Okay, so maybe I did.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I felt like it. Any other personal questions?”
“Were you two sleeping together?”
This comment made Shaw noticeably stiffen. Frank, perhaps sensing he’d gone too far, looked down at the folder in his lap and said quickly, “Okay, we’ll be wheels up in thirty minutes. We can go over the next job on the wings.”
“Great,” said Shaw dully. He rolled down his window and breathed in the morning air. He did most of his work in the middle of the night and many of his “jobs” ended in the early morning hours.
I work for something loosely called an agency that doesn’t officially exist doing things around the world that none will ever know I did.
“Agency” policy allowed its operatives to go right up to the line of legality, often crossing it, sometimes obliterating it. The countries financially and logistically supporting Shaw’s agency were part of the old G8 vanguard and thus technically constituted the most “civilized” societies in the world. They could never employ brutal and sometimes lethal tactics through their own official channels. So they circumvented that problem by secretly creating and feeding a hybrid beast that was only graded on results achieved through any means possible. Typically, neither personal rights nor the benefit of legal counsel entered the equation.
Frank studied him for a moment. “I sent some flowers to Anna’s grave.”
Surprised, Shaw turned to him. “Why?”
“She was a fine woman. And for some reason she was head over heels for your sorry ass. That was the only flaw I could find in the lady, her poor judgment in men.”
Shaw turned to look back out the window.
“You’ll never find anybody that good ever again.”
“That’s why I’m not even bothering to look, Frank.”
“I was married once.”
Shaw closed the window and sat back. “What happened?”
“She’s not living anymore. She was sort of like Anna. I married way above my pay grade. That stuff never strikes twice.”
“At least you made it down the aisle. I never got that chance.”
Frank looked like he was going to say something else, but lapsed into silence. The two men rode the rest of the way to the airport without speaking.
CHAPTER
4
THE GULFSTREAM rode into the air on smooth winds. Once they’d leveled off, Frank brought out the usual file: photos, background reports, analyses, and action recommendations.
“Evan Waller,” began Frank. “Canadian. Sixty-three years old.”
Shaw picked up a cup of black coffee with one hand and a photo with the other. He was staring at a man whose head was shaved down to the scalp. He looked fit and strong and his facial features were sharp and angular, like an image on a high-def LCD screen with megahertz levels. Even from the photo the eyes seemed to house a current of electricity that looked capable of shooting straight out at Shaw, delivering a mortal wound. The man’s long nose appeared as though it started mid-forehead and ran arrow straight to the top of his mouth. It was a cruel mouth if there ever was such a thing, thought Shaw. And this man was no doubt cruel and evil and dangerous. If he weren’t all of those things, Shaw wouldn’t be looking at his photo. He never went after saints, only violent sinners.
“Looks good for his age,” said Shaw, dropping the photo onto the small table.
“For the last two decades at least he’s been into anything that makes lots of
money. On the surface he’s golden. Legit businesses, keeps a low profile, gives to charities, is into helping third world countries build infrastructure.”
“But?”
“But we’ve discovered that his underlying wealth is built on human trafficking, mostly young Asian and African teens mass-kidnapped by Waller’s people and then sold into prostitution in the Western Hemisphere. That’s why he’s so into third world development. It’s his pipeline. He uses that as a way to get the product he needs. And his legit businesses launder the cash from those activities.”
“Okay, that qualifies him for a well-deserved visit from me.”
Frank stood and poured himself a Bloody Mary from the small bar set up against one wall of the aircraft and dropped a celery stalk in the glass. He sat back down, jiggling the ice with a long spoon. “Waller hid the details well. It took us time to get the goods on him, and even then it may not hold up in a court of law. The guy’s bad, no doubt about it, but proving it is another thing.”
“So why are we even bothering to go after him if we can’t put him away? That’ll just warn him off.”
Frank shook his head. “This is not a snatch-and-prosecute. It’s a snatch-and-rat. We take him and convince him it’s in his best interests to enlighten us about a new line of business for him that we just found out about.”
“Which is?”
“Nuclear materials trafficking with Islamic fundamentalists on the worldwide watch list. He rats them out, he gets a deal.”
“What kind of deal?”
“Basically he walks.”
“To keep enslaving young girls?”
“We’re talking avoiding nuclear holocaust here, Shaw. It’s a trade-off the higher-ups are willing to make. At least we’ll put his operation out of business for a while. But he gets his freedom and all the money he’s no doubt hidden around the world.”
“So he’ll just open for business again. You know, sometimes I get confused about which devil we’re actually dealing with.”
“We deal with them all, just in different ways.”
“Okay, so what’s the plan?”
“We found out that he’s heading to the south of France for a little holiday in between planning nuclear holocausts. He’s rented a villa in Gordes. You ever been there?” Shaw shook his head. “It’s really beautiful, so I hear.”
“So is Vienna, at least so I hear. All I usually get to see are the sewer pits, emergency rooms, and the morgue.”
“He travels with heavy security.”
“They always do. How do you see the extraction?”
“Quick and clean, of course. But the French are totally outside the loop on this. We can expect no help from them. If you go down, your ass is cooked.”
“Why would I expect anything less?”
“The timing will be tight.”
“The timing is always tight.”
“That’s true,” Frank conceded.
“So we kidnap him, work on him, and hope he breaks?”
“Our job is just to get him. Others will break him.”
“Right, and then let him walk?” Shaw said in disgust.
“The suits make the rules.”
“You’re wearing a suit.”
“Correction. The guys wearing the expensive suits make the rules.”
“Okay, but if you recall, the last time I was in France things didn’t go very well.”
Frank shrugged. “So let’s get down to the details.”
Shaw drained his coffee cup. “It’s all in the details, Frank. Plus a hell of a lot of luck.”
CHAPTER
5
REGGIE CAMPION drove her ten-year-old dented Smart Car City-Coupé from her flat in London past Leavesden to the north and continued on for a few more kilometers. After meandering through narrow country roads she turned off onto a one-car-wide dirt lane, eventually passing through lichen-covered stone columns that bore the name “Harrowsfield,” which was the property she was now on. Her gaze then carried, as it usually did, up the twisty crushed gravel drive toward the old crumbling mansion.
Some claimed Rudyard Kipling had once leased the estate. Reggie doubted that, although she believed it would have appealed to an author who had created such marvelous, intrigue-laden adventure stories. It was a vast place, jury-rigged in parts, with secret doors and passages, stone turrets with cold chambers, an enormous library, corridors that ended in solid walls, an attic filled with equal parts museum-quality artifacts and junk, a rabbit warren of a cellar with musty bottles of mostly undrinkable wine, an antiquated kitchen with a leaky roof and exposed, sparking wiring, and enough outbuildings to house several army battalions on over a hundred hectares of neglected grounds. It was ancient, falling apart, smelly, mostly uninhabitable, and she loved it. If she’d had the money she would have purchased it. But Reggie would never have enough money for that.
She often stayed overnight here. A hopeless insomniac, she would wander the dark mansion for hours. It was then that she thought she could feel the presence of others who also called Harrowsfield home though they were no longer among the living. She would have preferred to stay out here full-time. Her flat was small, basic, in an undesirable part of the city, and was still more than she could afford. She had cut back on luxuries such as food and clothing in order to get by. She had certainly not chosen this career path for the income potential.
She parked the car in front of the old carriage house now turned into garages and a workshop and saw that several people were there ahead of her. She used her key to open the door into the mudroom of the mansion and a little chime was heard. An instant later a broad-shouldered muscular man a little under six feet and in his thirties emerged from an inner room. He was holding a cup of tea in one hand and a customized nine-millimeter pistol in the other, and that was pointed at Reggie’s chest. He was dressed in tight-fitting, snake-hipped corduroy pants, a white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and slim black leather loafers with no socks despite the damp chill that was normal for Harrowsfield even in the heat of summer. His fierce dark eyebrows nearly met in the middle of his forehead and his shaggy brown hair hung down to them.
On seeing her he slipped the gun in his shoulder holster, grinned, and took a sip of his tea. Whit Beckham said, “Eh, Reg, you shoulda rung up when you hit the gateposts. Almost shot you. Be in a funk for weeks if I did that.” His robust Irish accent had softened over the last few years to where Regina could understand almost all of what he said without the services of a translator.
She slipped off her jacket and hung it on a wooden peg on the wall. She was dressed in faded jeans, a burgundy lightweight turtleneck sweater with the collar turned up, and black ankle boots. Her hair was returned to its original shade of rich dark brown and was secured at the nape of her neck with a tortoiseshell clip. She wore no makeup, and as she stepped into the light thrown through the windows, one could see, though she was only twenty-eight, the beginnings of a fine web of lines around her wide, intense eyes.
“My mobile never manages to work round here, Whit.”
“I reckon it’s time to get a new mobile service then,” he advised. “Tea?”
“Coffee, the stronger the better. It was a long flight and I didn’t sleep much.”
“Coming up.”
“Brilliant, thanks. Dom here? Didn’t see his motorbike.”
“I think he parked it in one of the garages. And it’s not a motorbike.”
“What then?”
“It’s a crotch rocket. Has to do with horsepower and such, see?”
“Right, interesting stuff, male toys.”
He gave her a look. “You doing okay?”
She feigned a smile. “Smashing. Never better. You do it once, it gets easier each time.”
His face creased into a frown. “That’s a crock of shit and you know it.”
“Do I?”