Deliver Us From Evil (42 page)

K
UCHIN HAD
chosen the ground, but not in the location one would have expected, not even Pascal. High ground was almost always good
ground when it came to a conflict. Almost always. He aimed his rifle, sighting through the scope, and used a gloved hand to
rub a bit of dirt off the glass. He pulled up his glove and eyed his watch. Then he lay back and waited, counting off seconds
in his head to keep alert.

When the sounds first came he didn’t move. As the footfalls came closer he timed their impact with the ground and moved when
they struck to disguise any noise he might make. The barrel came up; his dominant right eye leaned to the glass. The reticle
did its job. Target acquired, there was no reason to wait. He fired.

“Shit!” screamed Whit, clutching his leg and falling to the ground immediately behind Shaw.

“Everyone down,” yelled Shaw.

They all flattened to the ground. Reggie slid over to Whit to see how bad the hit was. He was already pulling open his jumpsuit
to try to stop the bleeding. “It went through,” he grunted. “Don’t think it hit the bone, but Jesus it hurts like hell.”

Reggie said, “We’ll get you out of this.”

Whit shook his head, his face growing pale. “It’s just like Rice. The bastard has his method, Reg. Leg first, then the torso.”
He grunted in anguish, his whole body shaking with pain. His mouth quivering, he added, “And then the damn dogs.”

“I won’t let that happen.”

He grabbed her with his good arm and thrust the knife into her hand. “If you hear those dogs coming just finish me off before
they get to me. Promise me!” She couldn’t answer him, but stared back at him helplessly. He shook her. “Damn it, Reggie, promise
me. Don’t let them do to me what they did to Rice.”

Reggie looked down at the knife as tears formed in her eyes. “Whit, I can’t. I can’t do that.”

Whit seemed to gather his strength to make one more plea. “If you don’t then Kuchin wins. And we can’t let the bloody monster
win, Reg, can we?” He lay back gasping.

Reggie clenched the knife tighter, brushed the tears away, and said, “All right, I will. If I
have
to.”

From where he crouched Shaw surveyed the landscape ahead. The fog was still rolling in, heavier now, covering everything with
a gauzy haze. The shapes of things began to alter and transform, playing tricks on one’s eyes. The direction Whit had been
shot from meant that Kuchin was somewhere in front of him, but that left a lot of degrees of the compass to account for. They
might only get one chance at this. He told Katie to stay where she was and crawled over to Reggie and Whit. After checking
on the wounded man, he handed her the gun. She looked at him questioningly.

Shaw said, “This is our last chance, Reggie. The only way we get out of this is to smoke him out.”

“How?”

“Muzzle flash. We haven’t seen one yet, but it’s still dark enough for the light to be clearly visible when it comes.”

“How are you going to manage that?”

“By making him fire again.”

“I know that, but how!” she said fiercely.

He pointed up ahead. “I’m going to run in a straight line directly in front of you from right to left. You keep your eyes
up there. The flash will come from that direction. He’s close. I could tell from the sound of the discharge. It wasn’t fired
from a distance.”

“Shaw, you—”

He looked over at Whit moaning on the ground. “When the muzzle flash comes—”

“Shaw, I can’t—”

He slapped her in the face so hard it left her cheek red and raw. “Don’t tell me what you can’t do. You
will
do this.”

She looked stunned from his strike but her eyes didn’t water. They appeared to harden. He seemed to notice this and his voice
softened a notch. “You can make this shot, Reggie. I’ve seen you do it on the firing range. Six inches below the muzzle flash.
Place a triple tap right there, grouped close. He won’t be wearing body armor because he doesn’t know we have a gun. As soon
as you do it, you and Katie help Whit back to the coastline, and wait for Frank there.” He handed her the cell phone. “Keep
calling him to check his progress and that way he should be able to link on the GPS chip in the phone.”

Reggie licked her lips. “Shaw?” she began.

“Just do it, Reggie. Just finish it. For me.”

She finally nodded dumbly and he immediately turned from her and stood half bent over.

“Shaw,” screamed Katie as she rose from the dirt and moved toward him. “Look out.”

Shaw glanced to his left. The son of a bitch had changed positions somehow, with the silence of a ghost. And he looked ghostly
too, through the cover of fog. There was Kuchin, rifle already raised and ready to fire. With a weapon like that it was really
point-blank. He couldn’t miss.

Shaw threw out his arms a split second before the shot. He felt the bullet burn across the surface of his right limb. As he
lowered his arms, he wondered how the man could have missed that badly at this range. Then, like an avalanche, the truth came
and crushed him.

“Katie!”

He turned in time to see Katie James toppling backward from the force of the ordnance that had just blown through her. The
wisps of her blonde hair flew outward as the round exited her back and splattered into a rock behind her. She hit the ground,
bounced slightly, and lay still.

Kuchin stood there, barely forty feet away. He looked down at the fallen woman and then up at Shaw, who could not draw his
gaze from her.

Kuchin said, “I told you if you followed my instructions
to the letter
she would be released unharmed. Instead, you disobeyed me. You went back to the house and took her. You broke our compact.
You are actually the reason for her death, my friend.”

By millimeter increments Shaw pulled his gaze from Katie to Kuchin. From the look in the man’s eyes, he realized that this
had all been planned. No guards at the house, Katie all alone. A truck coming in at the end and a handful of shots fired to
make it look good. It hadn’t been a planned ambush. He’d wanted Shaw to rescue Katie. Break the agreement. And he’d walked
right into the trap. Fallen for it like the greenest sucker on earth.

With a blur of motion fueled by a level of rage he’d only felt one other time in his life, Shaw exploded forward and within
four seconds had covered nearly all the ground between him and Kuchin, his knife raised in a killing position. But it had
taken Kuchin less time than that to raise his rifle once more and take careful aim. Shaw’s brain was sighted clearly on his
American-made reticle that had never missed its target. Right before he fired a swirl of fog covered Kuchin completely.

The shot came. Then another. And then a final one.

Kuchin lowered the rifle even as Shaw leapt. Then the rifle fell to the dirt as the Ukrainian’s grip weakened and blood started
to spurt out of the three holes in his chest. The shots were so closely grouped that all three bullets had smashed into his
heart.

Reggie lowered the pistol. The smoky firing range had paid off. She had just memorized where he was behind the fog. And this
time the target hadn’t moved.

Kuchin dropped to his knees, his eyes wide with disbelief about what had just happened. This was so even though the man was
already medically dead. Scientists sometimes referred to this as the “technical soul,” the last synaptic firing from a dead
brain that left some trace of reason despite physical life already having come to an end.

An instant later, Shaw collided with Kuchin and drove the knife right through his skull with such force that it broke off
at the handle. Fedir Kuchin fell backwards with Shaw on top of him. And he hit him, once, twice, the blows accelerating, raining
down on the dead man until there was no face left, only tissue that had been turned to pulp as Shaw’s knuckles cracked and
his hands bled.

“Shaw! He’s dead. He’s
dead
.”

Reggie tried to pull him off, but he used one big arm to knock her off her feet. Then, seeming to realize what had happened,
Shaw jumped up and raced to Katie. He checked her pulse but couldn’t find one. He straddled her, pumped her chest, then pinched
her nose and blew air into her mouth. He pumped and blew. Pushing down on her chest, forcing air into lungs that refused to
expand. But then she finally gave a moan, her body jerked, and she took an enormous breath.

Shaw looked up at Reggie, who’d raced over next to him. “Help me. Please.”

While Shaw cradled Katie’s head in his arms, Reggie opened her shirt and checked the wound.

“It went through her,” she said. “But it entered very close to her heart.” She dressed the wound and stopped the bleeding
as best as she could. Shaw called Frank and told him what had happened. They were bringing a medical team with them, he told
Shaw.

As Katie slowly breathed in and out, Reggie sat back on her haunches, looked over at Whit, who lay on the dirt clutching his
leg and quietly moaning. Next, she stared over at Kuchin’s battered body and she remembered something. “May God understand
why I do this,” she mumbled, then crossed herself.

When Reggie noticed that Shaw’s arm was bleeding she pulled up his sleeve, saw the bullet track scored into his skin.

“You fouled his shot,” she said.

“What?” said Shaw.

“His shot hit your arm before it hit her. You screwed the trajectory. He was probably aiming for her head. From what he said,
he thought it was a kill shot for certain.”

Shaw looked at Katie, clearly not interested in this. “I’m the reason she got shot in the first place.”

“Shaw, you saved her life.”

“Not yet,” he said, a sob escaping his lips. “Not yet.” He held Katie as tightly as he could, as though that would prevent
life from leaving her. And from the woman leaving him.

K
ATIE AND
W
HIT
were treated on the plane by a medical team Frank had brought. When they landed in Boston they were both rushed to a trauma
hospital. Shaw, Reggie, and Frank sat in the waiting room for hours, Frank drinking cup after cup of bad vending-machine coffee
while Shaw just stared at the floor. The doctors came out to tell them that Whit was fine and would fully recover. Then more
hours passed.

Shaw stirred when a tall man and woman walked past the waiting room. It was Katie’s parents. He recognized them from a photo
she’d once shown him. They looked both exhausted and frantic. They were with their daughter for an hour before they came back
out and into the waiting room.

Shaw remembered that Katie had told him her father was an English professor. He was tall and spare, his hair mostly gray.
Katie’s mother looked like her daughter, slim and blonde, same eyes, same way of walking.

Katie’s father said, “They told us that you helped our daughter.” He directed this at Shaw. Shaw could barely lift his head
to look at the man. He tried to speak, but couldn’t. He looked back down, his guilt paralyzing him.

“Thank you,” said Katie’s mother.

Shaw still couldn’t look at them.

Sensing what he was going through, Frank rose and escorted the Jameses out of the room, talking to them in a low voice. He
came back in later and sat next to Shaw. “I put them in another waiting room. They’re calling the rest of the family.”

Reggie glanced over at him. “How is Katie?”

Frank said, “Still touch and go apparently. They still don’t know the extent of the damage.”

More hours passed. Frank had gotten some food from the cafeteria for them, but only he and Reggie ate any of it. Shaw just
kept staring at the floor. Then they saw Katie’s parents come out of the intensive care unit again.

From the looks on their faces the news was good. Katie’s mother came over to Shaw. This time he rose and she hugged him. “She’s
going to make it,” the woman said. “She’s out of danger.” This came out in a gush of relief. Her husband shook Shaw’s hand.
“I don’t know what really happened, but I do want to thank you with all my heart for helping to save her life.”

After a few more minutes they left to call Katie’s siblings and give them the good news.

Shaw just stood there staring at his feet.

“You did help save her, Shaw,” said Frank.

Shaw waved off his comment with a short thrust of his hand.

Reggie said, “Shaw, you need to go in and see her.”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t have that right,” he said between gritted teeth. He clenched and unclenched his hands, looked like he wanted to put
both fists through the wall. “She almost died because of me. And her parents are thanking me for saving her. It’s not right.
None of that is right.”

Reggie gripped his face and turned it so he was forced to look at her. “You
need
to go and see her.”

“Why?” he said fiercely.

“Because
she
deserves that.”

Their gazes locked for what seemed like forever. Reggie slowly released him and stepped back.

Shaw moved silently past her and left the waiting room. A few minutes later he was standing next to Katie’s bed. Tubes covered
her; machines surrounded her. The nurse told Shaw he only had a minute, then she retreated, leaving them alone. He picked
up Katie’s hand, holding it gently.

“I’m sorry, Katie. About a lot of things.”

He knew she was full of pain meds and wasn’t conscious, but he had to say these things. If he didn’t, he felt he would combust.

“I shouldn’t have left you in Zurich. I should have come after you sooner in Paris. I…” He faltered, fell silent. “I really,
really care about you. And…” The tears started to trickle down his cheeks and he drew a ragged breath, felt sick to his stomach.
He bent down and kissed her hand. As soon as he did, he felt her fingers tighten slightly around his hand. He looked at her
face. She was still unconscious, but she had squeezed his hand.

He saw the nurse staring at him from the doorway.

“Good-bye, Katie,” he said, finally letting her go.