Mallory tapped the file. “On top of a hundred other such atrocities. As is often the case with cunning men like this, Kuchin saw the fall coming long before his superiors. He falsified his death and fled to Asia, from there to Australia, and then on to Canada, where he built a new life with forged documents and a charisma that managed to conceal his underlying sadistic nature. The world thinks he’s a legitimate and highly successful businessman, instead of the mass murderer and war criminal that he actually is. It took three full years to piece this file together.”

“And where is he now?” asked Reggie, her gaze holding on one photo she’d slipped from the file. It depicted the remains of an unearthed mass grave where the skeletons were small because they were all children.

Mallory puffed his pipe to life and a pungent cloud of smoke rose above his head. “This summer he will be traveling on holiday to Provence -to the village of Gordes, to be more specific.”

“Then I wonder what it will feel like,” said Reggie to no one in particular.

“What will what feel like, Reg?” asked Whit curiously.

She looked once more at the photo of the small bones. “To die in such a beautiful place as Provence, of course.”

7

THE LONG MEETING had ended, the morning had given way to dusk, but Reggie still had work to do. She slipped outside of the dilapidated mansion and took a few moments to study the grounds in the dwindling light. Ever since the headquarters of Miles Mallory’s organization had been established here, Reggie had read up on the history of the place. Originally a feudal castle had stood on the footprint where the mansion did now. The surrounding lands had been the fiefdom of the wealthy lord of the manor, who ruled his people encased in a suit of armor, ready at a moment’s notice to cleave in a skull or two if necessary with his battle-axe.