Extreme Denial (26 page)

Squirming fiercely backward, hoping to seek cover in the darkness of the living room, Decker shouted at the man whom he still thought of as Dale Hawkins. “Who’s shooting at us? Tell them to hold their fire!”

But Hawkins had a look of absolute incomprehension.

Decker heard angry voices beyond the back door. He heard glass shatter at the front. As he spun to aim in that direction, intense detonations threatened to burst his eardrums. One, two, three, four. Almost passing out, Decker shoved his hands to his ears and then his eyes, desperate to shield them, because the concussions were matched by blinding flashes that seared past his eyeballs into his brain.

Moaning reflexively, unable to stop his nervous system’s automatic response to such intense pain, he fell to the floor, powerless against the flash-bang grenades that were intended to disable without permanently harming. In a turbulent recess of his mind, Decker knew what was happening—he had used flash-bangs on many occasions.

But knowledge was no defense against primal panic. Before he had a chance to overcome his pain and reacquire his presence of mind, his gun was kicked from his hand. Deaf and blind, he was grabbed and yanked to his feet. He was shoved out a door. He fell on a sidewalk and was dragged to his feet. Hands pushed him off a curb. Suddenly weightless, he was thrown to the right. He landed hard on a metal floor, felt other bodies being hurled in with him, and vaguely realized that he must be in a vehicle. A van, he thought, dazed. The metal floor tilted as men scrambled in. With several jolts, doors were slammed. The van sped away.

4

“You searched them?” a gruff voice demanded.

“In the house.”

“Do it again.”

“But we’ve got all their weapons.”

“I told you, do it again. I don’t want any more surprises.” Disoriented, Decker felt hands pawing over him, rolling him over, pressing, probing. His traumatized vision had begun to correct itself. His ears rang painfully, so that the voices he heard seemed to come from a distance.

“He’s clean,” another gruff voice said.

“So are the others.”

“Okay,” the first voice said. He sounded as if he had gravel stuck in his throat. “It’s time for show-and-tell. Hey.”

The van made a swerving motion, presumably turning a corner. Its engine roared louder. Decker had the sensation of increased speed.

“Hey,” the gravelly voice repeated.

Decker felt movement beside him.

“That’s right. You. I’m talking to you.”

Decker scrunched his eyelids shut, then opened them again, blinking, his sight improving. Bright spots in his vision began to dissolve. They were replaced by oncoming headlights that glared through a windshield—a
lot
of headlights. Freeway traffic. Decker saw that he had been right to believe he was in a van. The rear compartment in which he lay had no seats. Three men with handguns faced him. They were crouched at the front end of the vehicle. Beyond them were a driver and a man in the passenger seat, who had his head turned, staring back.

“Yes,
you,”
the man with the gravelly voice repeated. Flanked by gunmen, he was husky, with thick dark hair and a sallow complexion, olivelike. In his thirties. Wearing expensive shoes, well-cut slacks, a designer shirt, and a tailored windbreaker, all of them dark. Decker noted that the other men in the van had a similar appearance.

Ready with his weapon, the man leaned forward and nudged someone lying next to Decker. When Decker looked, he saw that it was the man he thought of as Dale Hawkins.

“You, for Christ sake,” the man said. “Sit up. Pay attention.”

Dazed, Hawkins pushed himself to a sitting position and slumped against the side of the van.

Although the ringing was still painful, Decker’s eardrums felt less compromised. He was able to hear the driver complain, “Another one! Jesus, these drivers are nuts. What are they, drunk? They think this is Indianapolis. They keep cutting in front of me. Any closer, they’d have my front bumper as a souvenir.”

The man who seemed in charge didn’t pay attention to the driver, instead, he kept staring at Hawkins, who was on Decker’s left. On Decker’s right, Hal sat up slowly.

“So this is how it works,” the husky man said. “We know Decker has no idea where the woman is. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be running around trying to find her. But he must think
you
know where she is.” The man gestured forcefully toward Hawkins. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t have driven all the way from Santa Fe to Albuquerque to break into your house and question you when you came home.”

The roiling, breathless effects of adrenaline seized Decker’s body. Everything was happening terribly fast, but despite the light-headedness and nausea that resulted when neither a fight nor flight response was possible, Decker struggled to keep his presence of mind, to pay attention to as many details as he could.

He continued to be struck by the man’s dark eyes, strong features, and olivelike complexion. Italian, he decided. The group was Italian. The same as last night. Rome. This all goes back to what happened in Rome, he thought with a chill. But how?

“I’ll make it simple for you,” the man in charge told Hawkins. “Tell
me
what Decker wanted you to tell him.” With a curse, the van’s driver swerved sharply as another car cut in front of him.

“Where is Diana Scolari?” the man in charge asked.

For a moment, Decker was certain that his traumatized eardrums were playing tricks on him, distorting the sound of words. Beth Dwyer. Surely that’s what the man had asked. Where is Beth Dwyer? But the movement of the man’s lips did not match Beth’s name. Diana Scolari.
That
was the name the man had used. But who the hell was Diana Scolari?

“I don’t know,” Hawkins said. His skin had turned gray with fear. His speech was forced as if his mouth was dry. “I have no idea where she is.”

The man in charge shook his head with disappointment. “I told you I wanted to make this simple for you. I asked you a question. You’re supposed to give me the answer I need. No muss, no fuss.”

The man picked up a tire iron, raised it, and whacked it against Hawkins’s shin.

Hawkins screamed, clutching his leg.

“And if you do what you’re told, no pain,” the man in charge said. “But you’re not cooperating. Do you honestly expect me to believe that the U.S. marshal”—he held up Hawkins’s badge—”assigned to make sure that Diana Scolari settles herself into Santa Fe doesn’t know where she’s run to?” The man whacked the tire iron near Hawkins’s other leg, causing the floor to rumble, making Hawkins wince. “Do you think I’m that stupid?”

Hawkins’s throat sounded parched as he insisted, “But I wasn’t the only one. There was a team of us. We took turns checking in with her, so none of us would stand out. I haven’t seen her since the first of the month.”

The husky man again whacked the tire iron against the metal floor.
“But you knew she ran off today.”

“Yes.” Hawkins swallowed with difficulty.

Whack!
The tire iron struck the floor yet again. “Which means you’ve been in contact with the rest of the team. Do you expect me to believe you weren’t told where the rest of the team has got her holed up?”

“That information is on a need-to-know basis. They told me I didn’t need to know.” Hawkins’s voice sounded like sandpaper.

“Oh, did they really? Well, that’s too bad for you, because if you don’t know anything, you’re useless, and I might as well kill you.” The man pointed his handgun at Hal. “I know who Decker is. But who are
you?”

“Nobody.”

“Then what good are you?” The man’s weapon had a sound suppressor. The pistol made the muffled report of a hand striking a pillow.

Hal fell back and lay still.

Decker’s heartbeat lurched.

The sudden silence in the van was emphasized by the roar of traffic outside. The driver swerved, avoiding a car that changed lanes without warning. “These jerks. I don’t believe it. They think this is a stock-car race. They’re out of their minds.”

The husky man continued to ignore the driver, concentrating hard on Hawkins. “Do I have your full attention now? One down. Next comes Decker. And after that, guess who?”

“You’ll kill me, anyway,” Hawkins said. “Why should I tell you anything?”

“Hey, if you cooperate, we’ll tie you up and stick you in a shed somewhere. We need to keep you quiet only until Monday. After that, it won’t matter.”

“How do I know I can believe you?”

“Look at this face. Would it lie to you?”

“What happens Monday?” Decker asked. He remembered that Beth had planned to fly east on Sunday.

“Did I ask you to butt in?” the husky man demanded.

Decker shook his head.

“You’re already on my list,” the gunman said. “If it hadn’t been for you, we would have gotten the bitch last night. We would have been back in Jersey by now. The boss wouldn’t have gone ballistic with us for missing her again this afternoon. We wouldn’t have to be spending our Saturday night driving around goddamn Albuquerque with you two.”

The reference to New Jersey increased the burning in Decker’s stomach. It was absolutely clear to him that the gunman would not have revealed any personal detail unless, despite his promises to the contrary, he had every intention of killing Decker and Hawkins.

The gunman pressed his pistol against Hawkins’s forehead. “Maybe you still haven’t grasped the situation. Maybe you don’t realize what my boss will do to me if I don’t solve his problem.”

“Please,” Hawkins said. “Listen to me. I don’t know what to tell you. At the end of August, I was transferred from Philadelphia to Albuquerque. Diana Scolari was my first assignment in this area. Other marshals were already involved.
They
knew the details. I wasn’t in the loop.”

At once Decker thought he might have found a way to postpone his execution. “
I
know her better than Hawkins does.”

The gunman swung his pistol toward Decker’s face. “Didn’t I tell you about butting in?”

Decker nodded.

“If you know so damned much about her, why don’t you know where she’s gone? We had orders to tail you. After the bunch of you left the house to drive to the FBI office, Rudy here put a homing device under the back bumper of the car your friends rented, the one you drove to Albuquerque tonight.

We’ve been following you. It’s obvious you’re running around looking for her.”

Decker didn’t respond.

“Say something!” the gunman barked.

“If I knew what this was about, I might be able to remember something she said, something she let slip, something that gives away where she might have gone,” Decker said. “And out of the goodness of your heart, you’d tell me.”

“To get out of this alive. Hey, I’m as pissed off at her as
you
are,” Decker said.

“Man, I doubt it.”

The van swerved again.

“She lied to me,” Decker said. “Diana Scolari? She told me her name was Beth Dwyer. She told me her husband died from cancer back in January. She told me she’d come to Santa Fe to start a new life.”

“Oh, her husband died, all right,” the gunman said bitterly. “But it wasn’t from cancer. She blew his brains out.”

Surprise made Decker gape. “What?”

“She’s a better shot than I am. She ought to be. Joey taught her.”

Joey? Decker thought. He wanted urgently to ask who Joey was, but he didn’t dare, needing to seem to be giving information rather than getting it.

“And how did she tell you she could afford that house?” the gunman asked.

“Her husband’s insurance policy.”

The gunman laughed once, angrily. “Yeah, Joey had an insurance policy, all right. It was in hundred-dollar bills in several bags in his safe at the house. Over two million dollars. After she blew his brains out, she took everything.”

The van swerved sharply, making everybody lurch. “Hey!” The gunman turned in fury toward the driver. “If you can’t handle this thing, Frank will.”

“I’m telling you,” the man behind the wheel said, “I’ve never seen drivers like this. Everybody’s got these big pickup trucks, and they cut in front of me like it’s some kind of game to see how close they can get without hitting me. This makes the Long Island Expressway seem like a drive in the country.”

“Just do what you’re told. I’m sick of screwups. That’s all this rotten job has been. One long screwup.”

As the gunman swung back toward Decker, Decker didn’t show his startled reaction when he felt slight movement next to him, on his right. From Hal. Concealed by the shadows at the rear of the van, Hal pressed a finger against the side of Decker’s ankle to show that the gunshot hadn’t killed him. Decker could think of only one reason Hal would do that— to warn Decker that Hal might try something.

The gunman aimed his pistol at Decker. “So, all right, lover boy. I’m a reasonable man.”

One of his companions snickered.

“Hey, I am,” the gunman said. “Give me a little credit. So here’s my proposition. On the odd chance that you had a suspicion you wanted confirmed by this marshal, I’ll give you thirty seconds to give me your best guess where she is. Make it good. Because if you don’t sell me, it’s bye-bye. Maybe by then this marshal will have figured out how serious I am.” Sweat streaked Decker’s face. “She told me she was going back to New York on Sunday.”

“Of course. To testify on Monday. Twenty-five seconds left.”

“Then you know where to try to intercept her—wherever she’s testifying.”

“Decker, after two attempts on her life, the feds won’t risk exposing her now until she’s got as much security as the President. The point is to get to her while they’re still confused,
before
they get organized. Twenty seconds.”

I have to do something, Decker thought, frantic. I can’t just let him shoot me. I have to—

His reflexes tightened as something made a muffled but shrill noise in the gunman’s windbreaker. A cellular telephone.

The gunman muttered, taking out a small, slim telephone, pressing a button. “Yeah, who is this?” The gunman listened. “Damn it, Nick’s going to be furious. We missed her again.