been
told that this moment would come. And she’d also been instructed that no training in the world could fully prepare her for it.
And they’d been right.
Her resolve seemed to pour out of her with each tear shed by what was now a harmless old man. As she lowered the knife, she
saw the relief in his eyes. She could just say that her cover had been blown and the mission was a failure. No one would ever
know.
There were two things that prevented that from happening. One was the mocking sneer that emerged in the man’s eyes as he saw
her weaken. The second was the picture of Daniel Abramowitz, age two, with a bullet hole in his small head. The photo had
come from the monster’s own archives, which he’d lovingly assembled over the years he ran the camp.
She had plunged the knife into his chest until the hilt smacked his sternum. She gave the blade first an upward and then a
downward jerk, and performed the same motion horizontally, severing arteries and destroying heart chambers, as she’d been
taught to do. The sneer was gone from the old man now. For one long second, while life still remained, she saw in his countenance
hatred, fear, rage, fear again, and then simply the flat, glassy stare of death.
“May God understand why I do this,” she whispered, the words that had become a ritual for her at the end of each mission.
Reggie had never hesitated again.
CHAPTER
11
F ROM THE KITCHEN Reggie grabbed some buttered toast and put it on a plate with fried sausages and a sliced apple. Also juggling a cup of hot
tea, she carried it all to the library. As she entered, Professor Mallory looked up from a large book written in Polish, took
out his pipe, and smiled. “I thought I heard you come in last night. Your car has a distinctive sound.”
“It’s called a wretched exhaust pipe.” She sat down next to him, lined her toast with the sausages, bit into it, and drank
her tea. “Where’s Whit?”
“I don’t believe he’s here yet. But I expect him shortly.”
“I wanted to talk to you about the personnel for the Kuchin job.”
Mallory laid aside his book. His bow tie was still askew, but this morning his shirt-collar points were both directed to where
they should be and it looked like he’d actually combed his hair.
“Do you have thoughts?” he asked.
“I believe Whit should play a prominent role.”
“Did he ask you to talk to me?”
“Not in so many words.”
“It’s difficult for you, I know. And him.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you’ve supplanted him as the leader in the field, Regina.”
The professor was the only one among them who referred to her by her proper name.
“I don’t see it exactly that way.”
“But it is exactly that way.”
“You know, Professor, quite frankly, you could use a bit more tact.”
He smiled at this mild reproach. “If you try to gloss over the truth or massage the facts all you’re doing is heightening
your chances of arriving at an erroneous conclusion.”
“Whit is a good asset.”
“I completely agree with you. And if it were women we were going after we would probably have greater use of him in the lead
role. Unfortunately, our targets trend to the male and heterosexual side.”
“He’s gone after men. Successfully.”
“Successful to the extent that they were terminated, yes. But we like to handle our work under the radar. For example, if
we left evidence behind of why we had ended the lives of these people and that became public, you know what would happen?”
“The remaining ones would hide even deeper. But there are no more Nazis.”
“It doesn’t disprove the point. And let me correct you. There are no more Nazis of which we are aware. New intelligence may
lead to more work in that arena. But take Kuchin. We dispose of him and word leaks out, other Eastern European mass murderers
with new lives—and there are at least a dozen we’re researching at present—would be
told that this moment would come. And she’d also been instructed that no training in the world could fully prepare her for it.
And they’d been right.
Her resolve seemed to pour out of her with each tear shed by what was now a harmless old man. As she lowered the knife, she
saw the relief in his eyes. She could just say that her cover had been blown and the mission was a failure. No one would ever
know.
There were two things that prevented that from happening. One was the mocking sneer that emerged in the man’s eyes as he saw
her weaken. The second was the picture of Daniel Abramowitz, age two, with a bullet hole in his small head. The photo had
come from the monster’s own archives, which he’d lovingly assembled over the years he ran the camp.
She had plunged the knife into his chest until the hilt smacked his sternum. She gave the blade first an upward and then a
downward jerk, and performed the same motion horizontally, severing arteries and destroying heart chambers, as she’d been
taught to do. The sneer was gone from the old man now. For one long second, while life still remained, she saw in his countenance
hatred, fear, rage, fear again, and then simply the flat, glassy stare of death.
“May God understand why I do this,” she whispered, the words that had become a ritual for her at the end of each mission.
Reggie had never hesitated again.
CHAPTER
11
F ROM THE KITCHEN Reggie grabbed some buttered toast and put it on a plate with fried sausages and a sliced apple. Also juggling a cup of hot
tea, she carried it all to the library. As she entered, Professor Mallory looked up from a large book written in Polish, took
out his pipe, and smiled. “I thought I heard you come in last night. Your car has a distinctive sound.”
“It’s called a wretched exhaust pipe.” She sat down next to him, lined her toast with the sausages, bit into it, and drank
her tea. “Where’s Whit?”
“I don’t believe he’s here yet. But I expect him shortly.”
“I wanted to talk to you about the personnel for the Kuchin job.”
Mallory laid aside his book. His bow tie was still askew, but this morning his shirt-collar points were both directed to where
they should be and it looked like he’d actually combed his hair.
“Do you have thoughts?” he asked.
“I believe Whit should play a prominent role.”
“Did he ask you to talk to me?”
“Not in so many words.”
“It’s difficult for you, I know. And him.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you’ve supplanted him as the leader in the field, Regina.”
The professor was the only one among them who referred to her by her proper name.
“I don’t see it exactly that way.”
“But it is exactly that way.”
“You know, Professor, quite frankly, you could use a bit more tact.”
He smiled at this mild reproach. “If you try to gloss over the truth or massage the facts all you’re doing is heightening
your chances of arriving at an erroneous conclusion.”
“Whit is a good asset.”
“I completely agree with you. And if it were women we were going after we would probably have greater use of him in the lead
role. Unfortunately, our targets trend to the male and heterosexual side.”
“He’s gone after men. Successfully.”
“Successful to the extent that they were terminated, yes. But we like to handle our work under the radar. For example, if
we left evidence behind of why we had ended the lives of these people and that became public, you know what would happen?”
“The remaining ones would hide even deeper. But there are no more Nazis.”
“It doesn’t disprove the point. And let me correct you. There are no more Nazis of which we are aware. New intelligence may
lead to more work in that arena. But take Kuchin. We dispose of him and word leaks out, other Eastern European mass murderers
with new lives—and there are at least a dozen we’re researching at present—would be
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