Extreme Denial Part 23

"And I don't like being shot at," Decker interrupted. "Who's trying to kill Beth Dwyer? What do you know about a man named Brian McKittrick? How are you mixed up in all this?"

"No comment," Miller said flatly. "This conversation is over."

"Not until you give me some answers."

"And if I don't?" Miller asked. "What are you going to do if I don't give you answers?"

"Doesn't it matter to you that Beth's life is in danger?"

"Whether it does or not is none of your business." Decker felt heat surging through his veins. As he returned the agent's glare, he wanted to slam Miller against the door. Beth! he kept thinking. Whoever wanted to kill her might have caught up to her by now. But this son of a b.i.t.c.h didn't seem to care.

"Well?" Miller asked.

Decker took a step backward. He told himself to calm down. He told himself that it wouldn't do Beth any good if he got himself arrested for a.s.saulting an FBI agent. Calm down, he repeated, his chest heaving.

"Smart," Miller said.

"We need to talk about this," Esperanza said.

"No," Miller said, "we don't. Excuse me. I have several important phone calls to make." He opened the door and walked into the building. With an angry glance through the window, he locked the door, then turned away.

"When this is over, he and I will talk," Decker said.

6.

As Decker got out of the police car in his driveway, he peered dismally up Camino Lindo toward the remaining fire trucks and the smoking ruin of Beth's house. Onlookers crowded the side of the road. A TV crew had a camera aimed toward the wreckage.

"Sorry." Remaining in the police car, Esperanza made a gesture of futility.

Heartsick, Decker was too preoccupied to respond.

"I'll keep working on him," Esperanza said "Maybe he'll let something slip."

"Sure," Decker said without conviction. He had never felt so helpless. Hal and Ben stood next to him.

"I'll keep prodding the Albuquerque police and airport security," Esperanza said.

"Maybe Beth and McKittrick drove toward Denver or Flagstaff," Decker said. "h.e.l.l, there's no way to guess which way they went."

"Well, if I hear anything, I'll let you know. Just make sure you return the favor. Here's my card." Esperanza wrote something on it. "I'm giving you my home telephone number."

Decker nodded.

The dark blue police car pulled away, turned to avoid the congestion of fire trucks and onlookers at Beth's house, and went back the way it had come.

Squinting from the westerly sun, Decker watched the cruiser raise dust as it receded along Camino Lindo.

"He's not obligated to tell us anything," Hal said. "In fact, he has to be suspicious about us. Certainly, he can't just take our word that we're somehow connected to the intelligence community."

"Affirmative," Ben added. "Right now, he'll do everything he can to check our backgrounds. Not that he'll learn anything."

"At least he knew enough not to identify you as intelligence officers to that FBI agent," Decker said. "Given the FBI's turf wars with other agencies, Miller would have revealed even less than he did."

"Even less? Hey, he didn't tell us anything," Hal said.

"Not true." Decker watched the police car completely disappear, then turned to open his courtyard gate. "Miller's interest in Beth confirms that she was the real target, and when I mentioned Brian McKittrick, I saw a look of recognition in Miller's eyes. Oh, he knows something, all right. Not that it does us any good."

Hal and Ben looked uncomfortable.

"What's the problem?" Decker asked.

" 'Us,' " Hal said.

"What do you mean?"

"We were sent here to do damage control if what happened last night was related to any of your former a.s.signments," Ben said.

"And?"

"It wasn't." Ben looked down, scuffing the gravel driveway with his shoes. "Whatever Beth Dwyer's problem is, your problem is personal. We're not authorized to help you."

Decker didn't say anything.

"As soon as we report in, we'll be recalled," Ben said.

Decker still didn't say anything.

"Honestly," Hal said, "it's out of our hands."

"Then, d.a.m.n it, get in your car and leave," Decker said. "I'll do this without you."

"How?"

"There has to be another way. Whatever it is, I'll find it. Get out of here."

"No hard feelings?" Hal asked.

"Do I sound like I have hard feelings?" Decker said bitterly. He entered his courtyard and slumped on a bench beneath the portal, murmuring despondently, thinking, If Esperanza doesn't learn anything from the Albuquerque airport, if he decides to hold back on anything he does learn ... The words dead end pa.s.sed through Decker's mind. He automatically applied their literal meaning to Beth. Was she being threatened at this moment? Why was she with McKittrick? Why had she lied? "Something." Decker impatiently tapped his right hand against the bench. "There has to be something I've missed, another way to connect with her."

Decker heard footsteps enter the courtyard. He looked up, to find Hal standing next to him.

"Did she ever mention that she'd like to go to any particular place?" Hal asked.

"No. Only that she wanted to close the door on her life back east. I thought you were leaving."

"No rush."

"Isn't there?" Frustrated, Decker imagined Brian McKittrick driving Beth along Fort Connor Lane as she felt the rumble of the explosions that blew her house apart on the street above her. If only the old woman who had seen the car drive away had gotten the license number. Numbers, he was thinking. Maybe the record of the telephone calls Beth made from her hospital room would provide a direction in which to search.

Or calls she made from her home phone, Decker thought. I'll have to remind Esperanza to check on that. But Decker's skepticism about Esperanza continued to make him uneasy. What if Esperanza holds back information?

"There has to be another way," Decker said again. "What alternatives are there to trace her? It can't be through her paintings. She never told me the name of the New York gallery she used. There are hundreds and hundreds of galleries there. Given the time pressure, it would take too long to contact every one of them. Anyway, for all I know, the gallery was a lie and Beth never sold any paintings. The only proof was the art dealer I met, Dale Hawkins, and he might not have been who Beth said he was. If only I'd thought to make a note of the license number on the car he parked outside her house. But I didn't have a reason to be suspicious."

When Decker looked up, Hal and Ben were watching him strangely. "Are you okay?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're gesturing and muttering to yourself."

"The car," Decker said.

"Excuse me?"

"The car Hawkins was driving. That's it!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Dale Hawkins was driving a rental." Decker stood, excited. "When I pa.s.sed the front window, I looked in and saw the envelope for the rental agreement on the front seat. I'm pretty sure it was Avis. And I'm very sure the date was September first, because that was when Beth closed the deal on her house. A blue Chevrolet Cavalier. If Dale Hawkins flew into Albuquerque as he claimed, he would have rented the car at the airport. He would have needed to show his driver's license and a credit card. I can find out his home address." Decker's excitement suddenly was smothered. "a.s.suming Esperanza tells me what he learns from the car-rental company."

Decker looked long and hard at Hal and Ben.

"I'm probably going to regret this," Hal said.

"What are you talking about?"

"I guess I can wait a while to let headquarters know that what happened last night has nothing to do with business."

"You're going to help me?"

"Do you remember when the three of us worked together in Beirut?" Hal asked unexpectedly.

"How could I forget?"

On March 16, 1984, the s.h.i.+te terrorist group, Hizballah, had kidnapped CIA station chief William Buckley. Decker, Hal, and Ben had been part of a task force trying to find where Buckley was being held prisoner. Decker's part in the search had lasted until September, when he had been transferred to ant.i.terrorist activities in Germany. The intensity of those hot summer months and the determination of the task force were seared in his memory. Buckley was never located. A year later, on October 11, 1985, Hizballah announced Buckley's death.

"Down the street from the task force headquarters, there was a little zoo," Hal said. "Do you remember that?"

"Certainly. I don't know how many animals the zoo had before the civil war broke out, but when we arrived, the only ones left were a leopard, a giraffe, and a bear. The bear hadn't adjusted to the climate. It was pathetic."

"Then a sniper from one of the factions decided to make a game of shooting at whoever went out to feed the animals. The sniper killed the caretaker. In the next two days, he popped off four volunteers. The animals began to starve."

"I remember that, too." Decker felt a constriction in his throat.

"One night, you disappeared. When you came back in the morning, you said you were going to take food and water out to the animals. I tried to stop you. I warned you the sniper would like nothing better than to kill an American. You told me you had taken care of the sniper. He wasn't going to be a problem any longer. Of course, another sniper might have replaced him and shot at you, but that didn't seem to bother you. You were determined to make sure the animals weren't suffering."

The courtyard became silent.

"Why did you mention that?" Decker asked.

"Because I thought about going out to track down that sniper," Hal said. "But I never worked up the nerve. I envied you for having done what I should have. Funny, huh? Beirut was a pit of human misery, but we were worried about those three animals. Of course, it didn't make any difference. A mortar sh.e.l.l killed them the next day."

"But they didn't die hungry," Decker said.

"That's right. You're a stand-up guy. Show me where the nearest pay phone is," Hal said. "I'll tell headquarters we're still looking into things. I'll ask them to use their computer network to find out who rented a blue Chevrolet Cavalier from Avis at the Albuquerque airport on September first. There was probably more than one Cavalier. A good thing it's not a big airport."

"Hal?"

"What?"

"...Thanks."

7.

Decker struggled with painful emotions as he stared out the rear window of the Ford Taurus that Hal and Ben had rented when they drove up from Albuquerque earlier in the day. That seemed an eternity ago. What he saw through the car's rear window was the diminis.h.i.+ng vista of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, of yellowing aspen in the ski basin, of adobe houses nestled into foothills, of pinons and junipers and the crimson glow of a high-desert sunset. For the first time since he had arrived more than a year ago, he was leaving Santa Fe. Oh, he had driven out of the city limits before-to go fis.h.i.+ng or white water rafting or on sight-seeing expeditions to Taos. But those day trips had somehow seemed an extension of Santa Fe, and after all, they had been brief, and he had known that he would soon be coming back.

Now, however, he was truly leaving-for how long he had no idea or whether he would, in fact, be coming back. Certainly, he wanted to come back, with all his heart, the sooner the better, but the issue was, would he be able to come back? Would the search upon which he had embarked create pitfalls that would prevent him from coming back? Would he survive to come back? During his numerous missions in military special operations and later as an intelligence operative, he had remained alive, in part because he had a professional's ability to distinguish between acceptable risks and foolhardy ones. But being a professional required more than just making judgments based on training, experience, and ability. It demanded a particular att.i.tude-a balance between commitment and objectivity. Decker had resigned from intelligence work because he no longer had the commitment and was sick of an objectivity that left him feeling detached from everything around him.

But he definitely felt committed now, more than at any time in his life. He was totally, pa.s.sionately, obsessively determined to find Beth. His love for her was infinite. She was the focus of his life. He would risk anything to catch up to her.

Anything? he asked himself, and his answer was immediate. Yes. Because if he wasn't able to find Beth, if he wasn't able to resolve the overwhelming tensions that seized him, he wouldn't be able to continue with anything else. His life would have no meaning. He would be lost.

As he peered morosely out the Taurus's side window, noting how the sunset's crimson had intensified, almost bloodred, he heard Hal in the front seat saying something, repeating his name.

"What is it?"

"Do people around here always drive this crazy, or is it just because of the holiday weekend?"

"No. Traffic's always this crazy," Decker said, only partly attending to the conversation.

"I thought New York and Los Angeles had terrible drivers. But I've never seen anything like this. They come up right behind my rear b.u.mper at sixty-five miles an hour. I can see them in my rearview mirror, glaring at me because I'm not going eighty. They veer out into the pa.s.sing lane without using their signal, then veer back into my lane, again without signaling, this time almost sc.r.a.ping my front b.u.mper. Then they race ahead to crowd the next car. Sure, in New York and Los Angeles, they crowd you, too, but that's because everybody's in gridlock. Here, there's plenty of s.p.a.ce ahead and behind me, but they still crowd you. What the h.e.l.l's going on?"

Decker didn't answer. He was peering through the back window again, noting that the foothills and adobe houses had gotten even smaller. He was beginning to feel as if he were plummeting away from them. The racetrack flashed by. Then the Taurus began the climb to the peak of La Bajada hill and the start of the two-thousand-foot southward drop toward Albuquerque.

"Sat.u.r.day night," Hal said. "The guy might not be home."

"Then I'll wait until he comes back," Decker said.