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Rice shook his head and gave a hollow laugh. Waller shot him a glance.
“What?”
“I was just thinking that after all this you’re going to really need that holiday in Provence.”
CHAPTER
23
SHAW STRETCHED HIMSELF out along the top of the flat rock set at the far end of Gordes and checked his watch. It was one o’clock in the morning. Tourist buses came all during the day, disgorging their passengers, who would stand where Shaw was now, prone, and snap their digital pictures of the breathtaking views. Shaw was also here because of the views, only his were of the twin villas, Waller’s and Janie Collins’s. His electronic night glass turned solid masses, such as people, cars, and potted plants, into firm heightened outlines with many discernible features, while casting the background into a liquid green. There was one light on in the woman’s place, while Waller’s was dark. Not surprising since the man was not there yet.
He had not seen Janie Collins for a couple of days, but his interest in her had only increased. Shaw moved his torso a bit to provide relief against the sharp rock digging into his shoulder. The movement from below brought him back to alert. He focused his glass and watched as she emerged from light into darkness that his optics ate through with enviable clarity. Janie was barefoot and wearing a robe. As she slipped it off he saw she was wearing a one-piece bathing suit underneath. She slipped on swim goggles, tied her hair back, and dove in, breaking the surface of the water cleanly.
She cut through the water with sharp strokes. She reached one side, did a flip turn, and proceeded back the other way. After five laps, Shaw knew she was counting her strokes. There was little ambient light, no moon, and the light from the house lost all potency before it reached the poolside, so there was no way she could see the walls to know when to turn. Thirty laps later she’d not diminished her speed. Shaw had to keep rubbing his eyes because her methodical movements were hypnotic, like watching a metronome whisk back and forth.
The light coming on caused Shaw to leave the woman and focus on the villa next door. As the man came into view Shaw saw that it wasn’t Waller. He couldn’t see his features that clearly, but the man was bigger and far bulkier than the Canadian. Shaw assumed that he was part of an advance security team. As Shaw had predicted to Frank previously, Waller’s men would search the place and then lock it down, probably posting sentry perimeters until the boss arrived. It was the same protocol the United States Secret Service used.
Shaw watched as the burly man dressed all in black expertly searched the outdoor space, his pistol out and ready as it pointed into darkened corners. Shaw saw the man flinch and then look over his shoulder. In a few seconds he’d passed by the pool in Waller’s rear grounds, gained hand- and footholds on the dividing wall between the properties, and scrambled upward to peer over it.
Shaw’s glass shot back to Janie. Finished with her swim, she was walking up the steps of the pool. As he continued to stare, she stripped off her wet bathing suit and let it fall to the pool deck. She picked up the towel and dried off before wrapping it around her. Shaw swiveled his gaze to the man at the wall. Even with his electronics he couldn’t see the man’s features clearly enough, but he assumed the guy was pleased with this show of female nudity. He was certain the man would report back to Waller with this juicy bit of intelligence. “Janie” might have inadvertently made a very serious blunder.
An hour later the Waller villa went dark and Shaw let his night glass swivel back to Janie’s house. He stiffened a bit. In the darkest corner, by an alcove, he thought he saw movement. Was it Janie? Or had one of Waller’s men gotten into the rear grounds from the other direction while Shaw was focused on the villa next door?
Shaw’s mind raced ahead. Had the woman locked the rear sliding glass door? Shaw decided that she probably hadn’t. She was too trusting, too ready to give out personal information. For the time being he forgot about any vague suspicions he might have had of her. She was probably a young, naïve heiress vacationing next door to a psychopath who sold young women into sexual slavery.
Shaw jumped to his feet and ran. He had a Vespa he’d been getting around on, but the little engine’s whine would be problematic at this hour of the night. He pounded down the empty cobblestone streets of Gordes, past the town square, down a shortcut by the church, around an alley, and down another set of aged steps that cut still more time off the trip. Passing an amphitheater that hosted concerts during the warmer months, he skipped down the final set of stone risers that would deliver him to within ten meters of the two villas. He peered around a corner of stone jutting out from the otherwise sheer face of the cliff. Janie’s villa was on the right, Waller’s on the left.
There was a silver Citroën van in the small park-off directly in front of Waller’s villa. By Janie’s entrance was her small two-door crimson Renault with its rear hatch a bare foot from the front door. Shaw could see that the Renault was empty but the Citroën wasn’t. Two men sat in the front, one of them probably the guy he’d seen doing the earlier recon, but he couldn’t be sure about that. He calculated that their line of sight had one blind spot. Proceeding along this path slowly, he tested the validity of this assumption. The two sentries remained right where they were. Shaw turned a corner and was now at a point where he could gain access to Janie’s rear grounds.
The wall was six feet high, but unlike the common wall between the two villas, on top it had long stones mortared in vertically that added another eighteen inches to the height. That was probably because this wall was next to a public walking path. That would make peering over the wall impossible and climbing over it painful. Shaw found this to be true on his first attempt to mount the barrier. He let go, dropped to the street, slipped off his jacket, covered his scraped hands with it, and tried again. He was up and over the wall in a matter of seconds, dropping noiselessly to the other side in the soft grass. He crouched, getting his bearings. He was in the side yard whose border was planted with climbing roses and luscious bougainvillea. The pool area was up a short flight of flagstone steps to his left. He put his windbreaker back on, his small night scope in one of the pockets.
He tried not to think about what Frank would say if he could see him right now. He was jeopardizing the entire mission by being here. He knew that. Yet he also knew that he wasn’t going to let one of Waller’s hired thugs have a free go at the young woman either. He crossed the short patch of grass and scrambled up the stack of steps.
Shaw felt the muzzle of the gun against his head a millisecond before he heard the click of the hammer being pulled back.
CHAPTER
24
THAT WAS the first mistake. The person was too close, mere inches away, which allowed no adequate buffer to ward off a sudden counterattack. The second mistake was not pulling the trigger and killing him. Shaw’s thumb jammed behind the trigger, making discharge impossible. His other four fingers closed on the muzzle, jer
king it downward so it pointed at the ground. The final mistake was not letting go of the pistol. He pulled hard, bent his body forward, and the figure sailed over him, landing hard in the grass. He ripped the gun free, straddled the body, and pointed the weapon at the person’s head.
“Janie?”
She was lying under him, her cotton robe askew and her hair in her face. She was breathing hard, probably from the impact with the ground. She had on a pair of tennis shoes, a robe, and not much else that he could see.
Her knee slamming into his left kidney sent a jarring pain up his back. He fell sideways and lay hunched over in the grass next to her. The two rose slowly, nursing their bumps and bruises. Shaw kept the gun in his hand.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded, her gaze flitting from the gun to his face.
“I saw lights on in the villa next door. Then I thought I saw a guy coming over the wall into your grounds.”
She looked around. “From where did you see all this?”
Shaw pointed at the cliffs. “I was taking a stroll. From up there it’s a clear line to your villa.”
“How did you know where I was staying?” she said sharply.
