Extreme Denial Part 2

Decker knocked again, waited, frowned, knocked a third time, waited, frowned harder, glanced to each side along the corridor, then used the lock picks concealed in the collar of his jacket. Ten seconds later, he was in the apartment, securing the door behind him, his weapon already drawn. Had McKittrick stood him up, or had something happened to him? With painstaking caution, Decker started searching.

The living room was deserted. So were the bathroom, the kitchen, and the bedroom, including the closets. Decker hated closets-he never knew what might be crouching in them. His chest tight, he completed the search, sat on a padded chair in the living room, and a.n.a.lyzed the possibilities. Nothing in the apartment seemed out of place, but that proved nothing. McKittrick could be in trouble somewhere else. Or it could be, Decker thought for the second time that the son of a b.i.t.c.h stood me up.

Decker waited, in the process conducting another search of McKittrick's apartment, this time in detail: in, under, and behind every drawer; under the mattress and the bed; under the chairs and sofa; in the light fixtures; in and behind the toilet tank.

What he found appalled him. Not only had McKittrick failed to destroy his notes after sending in his report but, as well, he had hidden the notes in a place not hard to predict- beneath shelf paper in the kitchen. Next to the names of the members of the group Decker had met the previous night, he found addresses, one of which was for the apartment building into which McKittrick had gone with Renata. Decker also found the address of something called the Tiber Club.

Decker memorized the information. He put the notes on a saucer, burned them, crumbled the ashes into powder, peered out the kitchen's small window, saw the brick wall of an alley, and let a breeze scatter the ashes. Hunger fought with the discomfort in his stomach. He cut a slice from a loaf of bread, returned to the living room, and slowly ate, all the while frowning at the front door.

By then, it was two in the afternoon. Decker's misgivings strengthened. But what should I do about them? he wondered. He could go back to the international real estate consulting firm and make an emergency telephone call to warn his supervisor that McKittrick had failed to be present at an appointment. But what would that accomplish, aside from creating the impression that Decker was determined to find fault with McKittrick? The guy's tradecraft was sloppy-Decker had already made an issue of that. So wasn't it likely that McKittrick had either forgotten or deliberately ignored the appointment? Maybe he was in bed with Renata right now.

If that's the case, he might be smarter than I am, Decker thought. When was the last time I was in bed with anybody? He couldn't remember. Because he traveled so much, he had few close female friends, all of them in his line of work. Casual pickups were out of the question-even before the spread of AIDS, Decker had avoided one-night stands on the theory that intimacy equaled vulnerability, that it didn't make sense to let down his guard with someone he knew nothing about.

This d.a.m.ned job, Decker thought. It not only makes you paranoid; it makes you a monk.

He glanced around the depressing living room. His nostrils felt irritated by the smell of must. His stomach continued to bother him.

Happy fortieth birthday, he told himself again.

9.

Decker had finished all the bread in the apartment by the time a key sc.r.a.ped in the lock. It was almost 9:00 P.M. McKittrick rushed in, breathless, and froze when he saw Decker.

"Shut the door," Decker said.

"What are you-"

"We had an appointment, remember? Shut the door."

McKittrick obeyed. "Weren't you told? Didn't my father-"

"He relayed a message to me, all right. But that didn't seem a reason to cancel our chat." Decker stood. "Where the h.e.l.l have you been?"

"You don't know?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You haven't been watching?"

"Make sense."

McKittrick hurried to the television set and turned it on. "Three different television crews were there. Surely one of the channels is still broadcasting from ..." His hand shook as he kept switching stations. "There."

At first, Decker didn't understand what he was seeing. Abruptly the loud, confusing images sent a wave of apprehension through him. Thick black smoke choked the sky. Flames burst from windows. Amid a section of wall that had toppled, firemen struggled with hoses, spewing water toward a large blazing building. Fire trucks wailed to a stop among the chaos of other emergency vehicles, police cars, ambulances, more fire trucks. Appalled, Decker realized that some of the wailing came not from sirens but from burn victims being lifted onto stretchers, their faces charred, twisted with pain, not recognizably human. Unmoving bodies lay under blankets as policemen forced a crowd back.

"What is it? What in G.o.d's name happened?"

Before McKittrick could answer, a television reporter was talking about terrorists, about the Children of Mussolini, about the worst incident yet of anti-American violence, about twenty-three American tourists killed and another forty-three injured in a ma.s.sive explosion, members of a Salt Lake City tour group that had been enjoying a banquet at the Tiber Club in honor of their final night in Rome.

"The Tiber Club?" Decker remembered the name from the list he had memorized.

"That's where Renata told me the terrorists like to go." McKittrick's skin was ashen. "She told me the plan was foolproof. Nothing could screw it up. It wasn't supposed to happen like this! Renata swore to me that-"

"Quit babbling." Decker gripped McKittrick's shoulders. "Talk to me. What did you do?"

"Last night." McKittrick stopped to take several quick breaths. "After the meeting, after we argued." McKittrick's chest heaved. "I knew I didn't have much time before you took the operation away from me and stole the credit for it."

"You actually believe that bulls.h.i.+t you told your father? You think I'm jealous of you?"

"I had to do something. I couldn't be sure my phone call to my father would solve the problem. There was a plan that Renata and I had been talking about. A perfect plan. After I left you, I went back to the cafe. Renata and the others were still in the upstairs room. We decided to put the plan into motion."

"Without authorization." Decker was appalled.

"Who was I going to get it from? You? You'd have told me not to. You'd have done your best to have me rea.s.signed. You'd have used the same plan yourself."

"I am trying very hard to keep my patience," Decker said. On the television, flames shot from doorways, forcing firemen to stumble back as another section of wall fell. The wail of sirens intensified. Smoke-shrouded attendants loaded bodies into ambulances. "This plan. Tell me about this perfect plan."

"It was simple to the point of brilliance."

"Oh, I'm sure it was."

"Renata and her group would wait until the terrorists came together in one place-an apartment maybe, or the Tiber Club. Then someone from Renata's group would hide a satchel filled with plastic explosive near where the terrorists would have to pa.s.s when they came out. As soon as they appeared, Renata would press a remote control that detonated the explosive. It would look as if the terrorists had been carrying the explosive with them and the bomb went off by mistake."

Decker listened with absolute astonishment. The room seemed to tilt. His face became numb. He questioned his sanity. This can't be happening, he told himself. He couldn't possibly be hearing this.

"Simple? Brilliant?" Decker rubbed his aching forehead. "Didn't it occur to you that you might blow up the wrong people?"

"I'm absolutely positive that Renata's group has found the terrorists."

"Didn't it also occur to you that you might blow up a lot of innocent people with them?"

"I warned Renata not to take chances. If there was the slightest doubt that someone else would be in the blast area, she was to wait."

"She?" Decker wanted to shake McKittrick. "Where's your common sense? Most people wouldn't be capable of detonating the explosion. Why would she?"

"Because I asked her."

"What?"

"She loves me."

"I must be asleep. This must be a nightmare," Decker said. "In a little while, I'll wake up. None of this will have happened."

"She'd do anything for me."

"Including murder?"

"It isn't murder to kill terrorists."

"What the h.e.l.l do you call it?"

"An execution."

"You're amazing," Decker said. "Last night, you called it 'extreme denial.' Call it whatever you want. It's still killing, and when someone agrees to do it, you've got to ask yourself what makes them capable of doing it. And in this case, I don't think it's love."

"I can't believe she's doing this only for the money."

"Where was the plastic explosive supposed to come from?"

"Me."

Decker felt as if he'd been slapped. "You supplied it?"

"I'd been given Semtex at the start of the operation-so Renata's group could try to infiltrate the terrorist group by offering them Semtex as a sign of good faith."

"You supplied the...?" With greater horror, Decker stared toward the sirens wailing on the television, toward the smoke, flames, and wreckage, toward the bodies. "You're responsible for ...?"

"No! It was a mistake! Somehow the satchel went off at the wrong time! Somehow the club was filled with Americans! Somehow the... I... Renata must have... mistake." McKittrick ran out of words, his broad mouth open, his lips moving, no sounds coming out.

"You weren't given enough Semtex to cause that much damage," Decker said flatly.

McKittrick blinked at him, uncomprehending.

"You had only a sample," Decker said. "Enough to tempt the terrorists and make them think they'd get more. Renata had to have access to a lot more of it in order to destroy that entire building."

"What are you saying?"

"Use your common sense! You didn't recruit a group of students to help you find the terrorists! You idiot, you recruited the terrorists themselves!"

McKittrick's eyes went blank with shock. He shook his head fiercely. "No. That's impossible."

"They've been staring you in the face! It's a wonder they kept themselves from laughing in your face. Cla.s.sic entrapment. All the time you've been s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g Renata, she's been asking you questions, and you've been telling her our plans, everything we've been doing to try to catch them." McKittrick's face became more ashen.

"I'm right, aren't I?" Decker asked. "You've been telling her everything."

"Jesus."

"Last night, when you warned them you might be rea.s.signed, they decided the game was over. It was time for them to go back to work. Did you suggest implementing the plan and moving against the terrorists, or did Renata?"

"She ..." McKittrick swallowed. "She did."

"To help you in your career."

"Yes."

"Because she loved you."

"Yes."

"Was the plan her idea in the first place?"

"Yes."

"And now she used the sample of Semtex you gave her. I'll bet they've got photographs and tape recordings that doc.u.ment your partic.i.p.ation. She put the sample with some of her own, and she blew up a tour group of Americans. You wanted to promote your career? Well, buddy, your career is over."

10.

"What a mess." In the international real estate consulting firm, Decker listened to his superior's weary voice on the scrambler-protected telephone. "All those people killed. Terrible. Sickening. Thank G.o.d it's not my responsibility anymore."

Decker took a moment before the implication struck him. He sat straighter, clutching the phone harder. "Not your responsibility? Whose is it? Mine? You're dumping this on me?"

"Let me explain."

"I had nothing to do with it. You sent me in at the last minute. I reported back that I thought the operation was in trouble. You ignored my advice, and-"

"I'm not the one who ignored your advice," Decker's superior said. "McKittrick's father took over. He's in charge now."

"What?"

"The operation is his responsibility. As soon as he got his son's phone call, he started badgering everyone who owed him favors. Right now he's on his way to Rome. He ought to be arriving at..."

11.

The Astra Galaxy eight-seat corporate jet, ostensibly privately owned, set down at Leonardo da Vinci Airport just after midnight. Decker waited beyond customs and immigration while a tall, white-haired, patrician-looking man dealt with the officials. As near as Decker could tell, there were no other pa.s.sengers on the jet. The man was seventy-two, but in amazing shape, broad-shouldered, tan, with craggy, handsome features. He wore a three-piece blended-wool gray suit that showed no effects of the long, hastily scheduled flight, any more than did Jason McKittrick himself.

Decker had met the legend three times before, and he received a curt nod of recognition as McKittrick approached him.

"Did you have a good flight? Let me take your suitcase," Decker said.

But McKittrick kept a grip on the suitcase and walked past Decker, proceeding toward the airport's exit. Decker caught up to him, their footsteps echoing in the cavernous facility. Few people were present at so late an hour.