Reggie took a sip of the coffee. She never felt comfortable talking about what she had done, even with people who’d helped her do it. Yet killing someone who had slaughtered so many did not draw the typical human emotions. To her and everyone sitting at the table their targets had forfeited any rights they had by their heinous acts. They might as well have been discussing the killing of a rabid dog. But perhaps, Reggie thought, that would be an unfair comparison.

For the dog.

“Thank you. But unfortunately, I’m sure Herr Huber will still rest in peace.”

Mallory said stiffly, “I doubt very much if the colonel is resting comfortably at this moment. The flames, I’m very certain, do hurt.”

“If you say so; theology was never my strong point.” She settled in a chair. “But Huber is now history. So we move on.”

“Yes,” said Mallory eagerly. “Yes. Exactly. Now we move on.”

Whit grinned wryly. “Then let’s see if we can ride the monster one more time without getting our bloody selves trampled.”

Mallory nodded at the slim, fair-haired woman seated to his immediate right. “Liza, if you would be so kind.” She passed around manila folders bulging with copies of documents and held together with multiple blood-red rubber bands.

“You know, Prof,” said Whit. “All this can go on a portable USB stick and from there onto our laptops. It’s a lot more convenient than toting all this around in my car.”

“Laptops can be lost or compromised. Or even stolen. ‘Hacked,’ I believe, is the precise term,” replied Mallory with a trace of indignation, but also with the slightly insecure look of someone to whom computers remained an enigma.

Whit held up the folder. “Well, bloody paper can be nicked pretty easily too, particularly ten kilos of the stuff.”

“Now, let’s get down to business,” said Mallory brusquely, ignoring this comment. He held up a photo of an older man in his sixties with a long nose, a shaved head, and an expression that summoned only one reaction: fear.