Part 37 (1/2)

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 s.h.i.+mmering. 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 gla.s.s 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 sc.r.a.pes 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 hoa.r.s.e, 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 gla.s.s 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 G.o.d, 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 s.h.i.+eld her from the wreckage falling around them. Something glanced off his shoulder, making him wince. Something banged near his head. Gla.s.s shattered all around him.

Then the shock wave had pa.s.sed, 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.