Extreme Denial (39 page)

“For
Beth Dwyer”

“You really are a goddamned romantic.”

The instant Decker’s shoes touched the rain-soaked side of the road, McKittrick stomped the gas pedal, and the Pontiac roared away from Decker, barely missing his feet. As the door slammed shut from the force of the Pontiac’s acceleration, McKittrick laughed. Then the car’s taillights receded rapidly. Decker was alone in the dark and the rain.

ELEVEN

—————

1

The realization of what had just happened didn’t immediately take possession of Decker. He seemed to exist in a dream. Shuddering from the numbness of the shock that he had not been killed, he doubted the reality that McKittrick had let him go. McKittrick’s disturbing laughter echoed in his mind. Something was wrong.

But Decker didn’t have time to think about it. He was too busy turning, racing back toward the dim lights of Closter. Despite his exhaustion from too little sleep and not enough food, despite the pain from his numerous injuries and the chill of his wet clothes further draining his strength, it seemed to him that he had never run faster or with a fiercer resolve. The storm gusted at him, but he ignored it, charging through the darkness. He stretched his legs to their maximum. His lungs heaved. Nothing could stop him from getting to Beth. In his frenzy, he neared the town’s limits. He had a wavering glimpse of the Oldsmobile, where Esperanza had parked it off the street near the motel. Then the motel loomed, its red neon sign shimmering. Almost delirious, he charged around the corner, mustered a last burst of speed, and surged past darkened units toward the light gleaming from room 19’s open door.

Inside, Beth was slumped on the side of the bed. Esperanza held a glass of water to her lips. The gag and the ropes were on the floor. Aside from those details, every object in the room might as well have been invisible. Decker’s attention was riveted on Beth. Her long auburn hair was tangled, her eyes sunken, her cheeks gaunt. He hurried to her, fell to his knees, and tenderly raised his hands to her face. Only vaguely did he have an idea of his unrecognizable appearance, of his drenched hair stuck flat to his skull, of the scrapes on his face oozing blood, of his soaked, tom clothes smeared with mud. Nothing mattered except that Beth was safe.

“Are ...?” His voice was so hoarse, so strained by emotion, that it startled him. “Are you all right? Did they hurt you?”

“No.” Beth quivered. She seemed to be doubting her sanity. “You’re bleeding. Your face is ...”

Decker felt pain in his eyes and throat and realized that he was sobbing.

“Lie down, Decker,” Esperanza said. “You’re in worse shape than Beth is.”

Decker tasted the salt from his tears as he put his arms around Beth and held her as gently as his powerful emotions would allow. This was the moment he had been waiting for. All of his determination and suffering had been directed toward this instant.

“You’re hurt,” Beth said.

“It doesn’t matter.” He kissed her, never wanting to let her go. “I can’t tell you how worried I was. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yes. They didn’t hit me. The ropes and the gag were the hardest part. And the thirst. I couldn’t get enough water.”

“I mean it, Decker,” Esperanza said. “You look awful. You better lie down.”

But instead of obeying, Decker took the glass of water and urged Beth to sip more of it. He kept repeating in amazement, “You’re alive,” as if in the darkest portion of his soul he had questioned whether he would in fact be able to save her. “I was so scared.”

“Don’t think about it.” Decker lovingly stroked her tangled hair. “It’s over now. McKittrick’s gone.”

“And the woman.”

“Woman?”

“She terrified me.”

Decker leaned back, studying Beth in confusion. “
What
woman?”

“With McKittrick.”

Decker felt his stomach turn cold. “But all I saw was a man.”

“In the raincoat. With the rain hat.”

A chill spread through his already-chilled body. “That was a
woman
?”

Beth shuddered. “She was beautiful. But her voice was grotesque. She had something wrong with her throat. A puckered hole. A scar, as if she’d been struck with something there.”

Decker now understood why the repugnant guttural voice had been familiar. However distorted, there had been something about it that suggested an accent. An
Italian
accent. “Listen carefully. Was she tall? Trim hips? Short dark hair? Did she look Italian?”

“Yes. How did—”

“My God, did McKittrick ever call her by name? Did he use the name—”

“Renata.”

“We have to get out of here.” Decker stood, drawing Beth to her feet, looking frantically around the room.

“What’s wrong?”

“Did she leave anything? A suitcase? A package?”

“When they were getting ready to go, she took a shopping bag into the other room, but she never brought it back.”

“
We have to get out of here,
”  Decker shouted, urging Beth and Esperanza toward the open door. “She’s an expert in explosives. I’m afraid it’s a bomb!”

He pushed them outside into the rain, fearfully recalling another rainstorm fifteen months ago, when he had crouched behind a crate in a courtyard in Rome.

* * *

Renata had detonated a bomb in an upper apartment. As wreckage cascaded from the fourth balcony, the ferocity of the flames illuminated the courtyard. Decker’s peripheral vision detected motion in the far left corner of the courtyard, near the door that he and McKittrick had come through. But the motion wasn’t from McKittrick The figure that emerged from the shadows of a stairway was Renata. Holding a pistol equipped with a sound suppressor, she shot repeatedly toward the courtyard, all the while running toward the open doorway. Behind the crate, Decker sprawled on wet cobblestones and squirmed forward on his elbows and knees. He reached the side of the crate, caught a glimpse of Renata nearing the exit, aimed through the rain, and shot twice. His first bullet struck the wall behind her. His second hit her in the throat. She clutched her windpipe, blood spewing. As her brothers dragged her out of sight into the dark street, Decker knew that their efforts to save her were worthless. The wound would cause her throat to squeeze shut. Death from asphyxiation would occur in just a few minutes.

But she hadn’t died
, Decker realized in horror. In the weeks and months to come, McKittrick must have gone looking for her. Had she and McKittrick gotten together? Had she convinced him that she wasn’t his enemy, that the Agency had used him worse than
she
had? Had
she
been directing this?

“Run!” Decker screamed. “Get behind the Dumpster!” Hearing Esperanza racing next to him, he urged Beth ahead of him and suddenly felt himself being lifted off his feet by a force of air that had the impact of a giant fist. The burst of light and the roar that enveloped him were as if the heart of the electrical storm had condensed and struck him. He was weightless, couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t feel until with shocking immediacy he slammed onto the wet pavement behind the Dumpster. He rolled onto Beth to shield her from the wreckage falling around them. Something glanced off his shoulder, making him wince. Something banged near his head. Glass shattered all around him.

Then the shock wave had passed, and he was conscious of the painful ringing in his ears, of the rain, of people shouting from nearby buildings, of Beth moving under him. She coughed, and he feared that he might be smothering her. Dazed, he gathered the strength to roll off her, hardly aware of the chunks of cinder block that lay around them.

“Are you hurt?”

“My leg.”

Hands shaking, he checked it. The light from a fire in the remnants of the motel rooms showed him a thick shard of wood projecting from her right thigh. He pulled it out, alarmed by how much blood pulsed from the wound. “A tourniquet. You need a—” He tugged off his belt and cinched it around the flesh above the jagged hole in her leg.

Someone groaned. A shadow moved behind the Dumpster. Slowly, a figure sat up, and Decker shook with relief, knowing that Esperanza was still alive.

“Decker!”

The voice didn’t come from Esperanza. The ringing in Decker’s ears was so great that he had trouble identifying the direction from which the voice shouted.

“
Decker!
”

Then Decker understood, and he stared past the reflection of flames on the pools of water in the parking lot. In the street out front, McKittrick’s Pontiac idled. Prevented by wreckage from entering the lot, the car was positioned so the driver’s window faced the motel. McKittrick must have followed Decker back to town. His features contorted with rage, he leaned out the open window, holding up a detonator, screaming, “I could have set it off when you were inside! But that would have been too easy! I’m just getting started! Keep looking behind you! One night, when you least expect it, we’ll blow you and your bitch apart!”

In the distance, a siren wailed. McKittrick raised something else, and Decker had just enough strength to roll with Beth toward the protection of the Dumpster before McKittrick fired an automatic weapon, bullets slamming against the metal container. Behind the bin, Esperanza pulled out a pistol and shot back. The next thing, Decker heard tires squealing on wet pavement, and McKittrick’s Pontiac roared away.

2

A second siren joined the first.

“We have to get out of here,” Esperanza said.

“Help me with Beth.”

Each man took an arm, lifting her, struggling to hurry with her into the darkness at the back of the motel. A crowd had begun to gather. Decker brushed past two men who ran from an apartment building behind the motel.

“What happened?” one of them shouted.

“A propane tank blew up!” Decker told him.

“Do you need help?”

“No! We’re taking this woman to a hospital! Look for other survivors!” Holding Beth, Decker couldn’t help feeling her wince with each hurried step he took.

In the murky alley on the opposite side of the motel, he and Esperanza paused just before they reached the street, waiting while several people raced past toward the fire. Immediately they carried Beth unseen along the street toward where the Oldsmobile was parked.

“Drive!” Decker said. “I’ll stay in the back with her!”

Slamming his door, Esperanza turned the ignition key. On the rear seat, Decker steadied Beth to keep her from rolling onto the floor. The Oldsmobile sped away.

“How
is
she?” Esperanza asked.

“The tourniquet has the bleeding stopped, but I’ve got to release it. She’ll get gangrene if blood doesn’t circulate through her leg.” Alarmed by a spurt of blood when he loosened the belt, Decker quickly reached into his travel bag on the floor in the back and grabbed a shirt, shoving it against the wound, creating a pressure bandage. He leaned close to Beth where she lay on the backseat. “Are you sick to your stomach? Are you seeing double?”

“Dizzy.”

“Hang on. We’ll get you to a doctor.”

“
Where?”
Esperanza asked.

“Back in Manhattan. We were headed west when we came into Closter. Take the next left turn and the next left turn after that.”

“To go east. Back to the interstate,” Esperanza said.

“Yes. And then south.” Decker stroked Beth’s cheek. “Don’t be afraid. I’m here. I’ll take care of you. You’re going to be all right.”

Beth squeezed his hand. “McKittrick’s insane.”

“Worse than in Rome,” Decker said.

“Rome?” Esperanza frowned back at him. “What are you talking about?”

Decker hesitated. He had been determined to stay quiet about Rome. But Beth and Esperanza had nearly been killed because of what had happened there. They had a right to know the truth. Their lives might depend on it. So he told them ... about the twenty-three dead Americans ... about Renata, McKittrick, and that rainy courtyard where Renata had been shot.

“She’s a
terrorist
?” Esperanza said.

“McKittrick fell in love with her,” Decker explained. “After the operation in Rome went to hell, he refused to believe she had tricked him. I think he went after her to make her tell him the truth, but she convinced him she really did love him, and now she’s using him again. To get at me. To get her hands on the money Giordano gave him.”

“She hates you.” Beth hardly managed the strength to speak. “All she could talk about was getting even. She’s obsessed with making you suffer.”

“Take it easy. Don’t try to talk.”

“No. This is important. Listen. She kept ranting to McKittrick about something you did to her brothers. What did you do?”

“Brothers?”
Decker jerked his head back. Again he suffered the nightmarish memory of what had happened in that courtyard in Rome.

As wreckage from Renata’s bomb had cascaded, a movement to Decker’s left had made him turn. A thin, dark-haired man in his early twenties, one of Renata’s brothers, rose from behind garbage cans. The man hadn’t been prepared for Renata to detonate the bomb so soon. Although he had a pistol, he didn’t aim at Decker—his attention was totally distracted by a scream on the other side of the courtyard. With dismay, the young man saw one of his brothers swatting at flames on his clothes and in his hair, which had been ignited by the falling, burning wreckage.

Decker shot them both.

“It’s a blood feud,” Decker said, appalled. A wave of nausea swept through him as he understood that Renata hated him even more than McKittrick did. Decker imagined them reinforcing each other’s malice, feeding off it, becoming more obsessed with paying him back. But how to get even? They must have debated it endlessly. What revenge would be the most satisfying? They could have just gunned me down in a drive-by shooting, Decker thought. The trouble is, merely killing me wouldn’t have been good enough. They wanted to make me afraid. They wanted to make me suffer.