“He doesn’t look like a guy who takes no for an answer.”

“But you don’t know him. You’ve never even met him.”

“Did he tell you what he did for a living?”

“A businessman.”

“Well, that covers a lot of possibilities.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine. This is Provence after all. What’s he going to do?”

Shaw quickly looked away, his pulse hammering at a vein near his temple.

“Are you okay?”

“Dinner’s not agreeing with me.”

“You want to go back to your room? I can make my way back to the villa by myself.”

“No, I’ll walk you.”

They took the shortcut and arrived at her villa a few minutes later. “Seems like our boy’s out for the night,” he said, looking at the empty parking spaces in front of Waller’s villa.

“He did leave rather abruptly after dinner,” she noted. “Said he had some business to take care of.”

“Busy guy.”

Her next words sent a cold dread down Shaw’s back. “He’s going to Les Baux, to see the Goya exhibit. He asked me to go with him.”

“And what did you tell him?” Shaw asked, a bit too sharply.

She stared at him, perplexed. “I told him I’d think about it and get back to him.”

Shaw thought swiftly and the words tumbled out of his mouth. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re going with me to Les Baux. Tomorrow. I’ve wanted to see the exhibit. I’d meant to ask you earlier.”

“Really?” she said skeptically.

“We can make a day of it. Have some lunch in Saint-Rémy?”

“Why are you doing this? Are you thinking this is a competition too? I’m not a prize to be won.”

“I know you’re not, Janie. And if you’d rather go with him instead, I’ll understand perfectly. It’s just that…”

“Just what?”

“I just wanted to spend some more time with you. That’s all. No fancy explanation. Just be with you.”

Reggie’s features softened and she grazed his arm with her hand. “Well, how can I turn you down since you asked so nicely.” She smiled. “It’s a date. Now the critical question is, Vespa or car?”

“It’s a little far for the Vespa, so I think your Renault would work out far better. Let’s say nine o’clock? I’ll walk down to your place.”

“Let me come up and get you.”

Shaw looked at her curiously.

“I just think it’ll be easier that way. We can drive straight out to the main road.”

“And Waller won’t know anything about it, you mean?”

“That’s right.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“I’m sure you can, Bill.” She paused. “And so can I.”

37

WALLER PLACED a sticky patch connected to a long thin cable against the side of Abdul-Majeed’s neck. Then he connected the line to a small battery-powered monitor that he turned on.

“What is that?” asked Abdul-Majeed nervously.

“It is nothing to worry about. It just measures your pulse. I do not have enough electrical power here to shock the truth out of you, my Muslim friend. But there are other ways.” Waller placed a cuff around the man’s arm and then plugged the cord running from the cuff into the same device as he had for the pulse reading. “And that of course measures your blood pressure.”

“Why do you need that?”

“Because I want to make sure I stop the pain before I kill you, of course.”

Abdul-Majeed tensed and began to chant under his breath.

“So your god is great, Abdul-Majeed?” said Waller, translating the words. “We will see how great he is to you.”

Abdul-Majeed did not answer, but kept up his chanting. Waller checked the readout of his vitals on the screen. “Your pulse is already at ninety-eight and your blood pressure is elevated, and I have not even started. You must relax your breathing; calm your nerves, my friend.”

“You will not break me!” the captive said defiantly.

Waller took duct tape out of his box and wound it around the man’s forehead, chin, and shoulders and around the table several times. The result was that Abdul-Majeed could not move his head or upper torso even an inch away from the wood.

“Do you know why I do this?” Waller asked. “It is so you will not be able to render yourself unconscious when the pain becomes too great. I have known men to crack their own skulls in order to escape it. I made that mistake once, but never again. Torture does not work if one cannot feel the pain.”

Waller pulled more items from his box, placed one in his pocket, and came back over to the table. “They say that the agony of a single kidney stone passing through one’s body is even greater than that experienced giving birth. I have never given birth, of course, but I have passed kidney stones and the pain is indeed severe.” He slipped on latex gloves, looked down at Abdul’s private parts, and then held up a thin glass tube twenty centimeters in length.

“This will have to serve as my kidney stone. Now take a deep breath. And then relax.”

Instead the man’s breathing accelerated and his cheeks bulged out as though he were tensing before the killing blow fell. “You will not break me!” he screamed over and over.

Waller methodically worked the glass tube up the man’s penis, using a rubber hammer to finish tapping it in. Abdul shrieked in pain with every millimeter it was thrust inside him.

“It is no more than a catheter, really. Now, this, this is the painful part.”

He slipped the vise grips from his pocket and looked at him. “All I require are names.”

“Go to hell!” screamed Abdul.

“Of course, very original of you.” Waller set the tension on the grips, lowered them into position, and snapped them into place, crushing the glass tube inside the man.

This time the scream was far louder than before. Waller’s men, who were waiting outside but near the door, looked at each other and then nervously moved away from the sounds. Only Pascal stayed close to the doorway, ever alert.

“You are bleeding in a place you would not like, Abdul,” said Waller, peering down at his work.

The response was a string of shouts in the man’s native tongue.

“Yes, yes, my mother and father are already quite dead, thank you,” said Waller.

The tears rolled down Abdul’s strained face, his jaw muscles bulged and shook. His tethered neck was stretched tight in his agony, every vein and artery visible. So great was his misery that if Waller had not bound it to the table, he would have indeed smashed his skull against the wood.

Waller continued on calmly. “I learned Pashto and a little Dari during the Soviets’ disastrous intrusion into your country. They are hard languages to learn, but not as difficult as English, which has so many exceptions there are no rules left.” He checked the monitor. “Pulse one-thirty-nine. I’ve seen far higher. When I run, in fact, I can get it up to over one-forty and I’m sixty-three. You are a young man, this is nothing. Now your blood pressure is one-fifty over ninety. A bit precarious. Well, let’s see.”

He snapped the grips on a new location and the man’s pelvis jerked upward, pulling against his bindings as he roared in pain again.

“Pulse one-fifty-seven. Okay, now I believe that I have your attention. We were discussing names.”

In gasps, Abdul said, “You will just kill me if I tell.”

“Now that is progress. That is good. We are closer to negotiation. And yet if you tell me, do you want me to just let you go? But if I do then you could go and warn those who betrayed me. Hardly a worthy proposition.”

“So I die then?”

“I did not say that.”

Waller undid the grips and then locked them higher up, crushing a particularly sensitive part of the Muslim’s anatomy.

Again, Abdul’s shrieks slammed into every corner of the small room. He threatened to kill Waller, behead him, disembowel him, come back and haunt him, slaughter everyone he ever cared about.

“I understand your anger, my friend, but it gets us nowhere,” said the Ukrainian. He looked down. “You are bleeding more heavily, Abdul, but it is not life-threatening so have no worries.”