404: A John Decker Thriller

by J. G. Sandom

  “How can that be if it was Ali Hammel doing the bombing?” asked Decker. “If El Aqrab’s dead?”

  “I don’t know,” the Russian hacker had told him. He’d run the analysis as a favor to Decker. “The phrases may have been patched together somehow. There are variations in modulation throughout the recording but that could just be the telephone signal. Of course, to have culled the precise phrases required would imply a significant database of El Aqrab’s vocalizations, certainly more than we have on file. And then to string them together in real time in response to your comments, well...you’d need a lot more processing power than we currently have, which is impossible. So, I’m telling you, the person speaking to you on the phone—it was El Aqrab.”

  Mysteries piled upon mysteries, Decker mused. He’d finally made it to Arlington and took Exit 77 onto the Lee Highway, toward Spout Run, and then merged onto the George Washington Memorial Parkway. Traffic was even worse now that he was approaching the city. It was backed up all the way to Key Bridge.

  As he crossed the river, Decker looked down at the dark swirling waters and thought of the young Chinese guard he’d dispatched on the roof of the Shanghai Hotel. Had it all been for nothing? He remembered his face, the blank look in his eyes. For nothing!

  H2O2 was dead. So was Ali Hammel and the rest of his cell. And, now, so were the Unit 110 analysts, and their servers destroyed. The only lead left was the assassin in the Shanghai Hotel, yet Decker was hamstrung by his recent suspension. He had no way to identify the assassin by himself and he was reluctant to get McCullough or anyone else at the Center involved. Besides, in all probability, the blond man with the scar on his cheek had been killed in the hotel explosion.

  Dead end, Decker thought, as he swung off the Key Bridge and made a right into Georgetown on M Street. But what had he expected? He had jeopardized everything, in this one desperate measure to find out the truth, and it hadn’t paid off.

  He remembered with excruciating exactness the walk from Hellard’s office to the front door of the Center. All those people staring at him, whispering and looking away. It hadn’t taken long for word to get out.

  It’s Decker. Look. There he is. Went rogue, staged some mission in China, and now—despite all of that promise, all of his fame and good fortune—he’s being escorted out in disgrace.

  Truth was, Decker realized, he was lucky they’d let him walk out at all. You’re a fucking celebrity, God help us. Hellard’s words rang in his ears.

  Thump, thump, thump. The wipers began to speed up. It was sleeting much harder here, and the streets and the sidewalks were covered in snow, crowded with shoppers, people milling about, wrapped in long winter coats. Someone was selling Christmas trees on the corner, Decker noticed. The same guy who set up his stand in exactly the same spot on Thirty-first Street each year. And there was the Salvation Army Santa Claus ringing his bell outside Pottery Barn.

  As Decker made a left toward his townhouse, warmed by these familiar details, a boy dashed out into the street without warning. He was being pelted with snowballs by friends. The boy froze as he saw Decker draw near. He stopped dead in his tracks.

  Thump...thump...thump. The wipers shifted into slow motion.

  b

  Decker turned to avoid hitting the boy in the street. He jammed on the brakes, just as his side window shattered, showering needles of glass in his face.

  CHAPTER 22

  Wednesday, December 11

  Decker stepped on the gas, barely missing the boy. The Z8 started to skid, then to shimmy and spin on the snow-spattered road. Decker watched helplessly as the windshield glass shattered, imploding. There was a hole in the center. The car was out of control!

  He tried turning the wheel, tried to straighten her out when he felt something burn past his face. A moment later, another hole appeared in the dashboard. Someone was shooting at him!

  Decker floored the Z8. He veered into oncoming traffic and drove another car—a Bronco—up onto the curb. Pedestrians screamed and leapt out of the way, throwing shopping bags everywhere. Decker jammed on the brakes. The BMW continued to slide when an explosion lifted up the edge of the roof, peeling it open like some giant can opener. Decker stepped on the gas. A moment later, the Z8 hit the curb. The wheels spun in the gutter, finally caught and the vehicle flew down the street. Two more shots tore the roof. Decker could barely see through the windshield. It was a cobweb of glass. He punched it out with his fist.

  Congress Court appeared up ahead. He wrenched the wheel left and the car skidded sideways on a blanket of snow, directly into the alley. Moments later the Z8 came to rest against the brick wall of the flower shop. Decker opened the door and rolled to the floor of the alley.

  He was sheltered now, he could see that...by the wall of the Uptown Valet store next door. Whoever was shooting at him seemed to have stopped.

  Decker climbed to his feet. He ran to the corner and poked his head out.

  The street was in chaos. The Bronco had somehow managed to pull off the sidewalk but people were still screaming and running about. Decker looked up instinctively, scanning each point of high ground, one after the other.

  There! On the corner of M Street. The architect’s office. A three-story structure with a fire escape. Decker noticed a dark bulge on the roof.

  Without thinking, he leapt from the alley and dashed toward the building. As he did so, the bulge on the roof shifted higher. Decker threw himself to the snow-covered ground just as the sidewalk shattered beside him.

  Then the crack of a rifle shot.

  But Decker was already back on his feet. He was already practically all the way to the fire escape when a woman suddenly appeared outside of Jessica’s Hair Salon.

  “Get back,” Decker shouted at her. She stared at him with a frightened look on her face, as if she thought Decker were about to assault her. “Go back in the store,” he continued, but it was already too late.

  A bullet entered her back, near the spine, and she pitched into his arms. Decker held her as another slug shattered her leg. For a moment, she tried to say something, her mouth pressed to his ear. Then she coughed, spitting blood up onto the side of his neck and collapsed.

  Decker set her aside, exposing himself. He waited for the punch of the shot, of the bullet as it drilled through his head, or his heart, or ripped off a limb, when he realized that nothing had happened.

  He squinted up at the roof. The sniper had vanished. Or had he? It was almost impossible to be certain in all the whirling snow.

  Without hesitating another second, Decker tore down the street toward the fire escape. He launched himself high in the air, catching the lowest rung with the tips of his fingers and hauled himself upward, using the momentum of his run to hoist himself further aloft. Then he was on. And secure. He pulled himself up until his feet reached the rungs of the ladder. He started to climb, higher and higher, slipping occasionally on the snow-splattered steps, his gaze never wavering from the roof right above him, searching for some sign of the sniper. But, by the time he reached the second story, no one had appeared at the edge of the parapet. Was he already too late?

  Decker reached into his jacket, started to pull out his gun, when he suddenly remembered: It was sitting on Hellard’s desk back at the Center. He was unarmed!

  There was a glass-fronted fire door, some kind of French window, leading out to the fire escape on this landing. Decker peered through the glass at the hallway within. He tried to open the door but it was locked from the inside.

  He glanced back up at the roof. Still no hint of the sniper. So he jumped up and grabbed the ladder above him. It swung down from his weight and he shimmied up until he reached the third floor of the building. Decker could see people working inside through the windows. They seemed oblivious to the commotion below. Then, a shot ricocheted off a rung of the fire escape.

  The sniper was leaning over the parapet. Pop. Pop. Two more shots whistled by. Decker curled himself into a ball and hurled himself through the window.r />
  The glass shattered and he found himself rolling onto somebody’s desk, glass flying everywhere. Papers shot through the air.

  “What the hell?” someone said. A young woman. She was sitting by a drafting table just a few feet away with a pen in her hand. Snow began whirling in through what was left of the window.

  Decker jumped to his feet. He scanned the chamber in seconds. Three people. The woman, plus two men behind desks. Unarmed. Not a threat. They were trying to slither away, trying to make their way toward the door.

  “There’s a man,” Decker said. “On the roof.”

  The three people were speechless. They were obviously terrified. After a moment, the woman glanced at the door. “Cable guy?” she replied.

  Through the doorway, across the hallway and stairwell, another ladder reached up to the ceiling. A pair of feet in black boots dangled down from above.

  The sniper. He was trying to slip in through the roof hatch!

  “Call the police,” Decker said as he rushed from the room. He leapt around the stairwell but the sniper was already at the base of the ladder. The man turned and pulled out a gun.

  Decker leapt upon him. For a moment, they struggled. Decker slammed the hand with the gun up against the side of the ladder. A Smith & Wesson 500. Bright silver, with a black Sorbothane grip. Once. Twice. Three times. Decker kept pounding the hand over and over again until the pistol flew off into space. Then he yanked at the stranger and spun him about.

  “You!”

  The blond man with the scar. The assassin from the Shanghai Hotel!

  For a moment, Decker hesitated. For a moment only, but in that instant, the man lunged at him, swinging his elbows and arms out and striking Decker on the side of the chin.

  Decker fell back to the railing. He saw stars as the man struck him again with his other elbow. Decker retreated again, almost tipping over the banister. Then the man was around him. He kneed at his groin.

  Decker tore away from the banister. In the confines of the hallway, he could barely pull his arms back to defend himself. He threw out a thumb strike, gouging the man in the larynx. He followed this up with a jab at his pectoral muscles near the shoulder joint, trying to immobilize his right arm. The assassin fell back. He started to run down the hall to the office. Decker followed.

  He caught the assassin as he lunged for the window. He spun him about.

  The man punched him twice in the face. Then a shovel hook to the liver. Another blow square to the face and Decker fell back. The two men were pinned now between a drafting table and the desk by the window. The three people had vanished.

  Decker rotated at the waist to generate power and threw an elbow strike to the face. The blond man countered with a hammer-fist to the temple. The blow glanced off but Decker was stunned. He fell back to the desk. He scrambled to right himself and felt something hard in his hand. Without even looking to see what it is, he picked up the object and struck the assassin on the side of the face. It was a stapler. There was a loud thwack and the blond man fell backward. Blood poured from his cheek.

  Barely pausing, Decker grabbed the man by the collar, turned him over and flung him with all of his might into the side of a copying machine near the door. The man groaned and slid to the floor. Decker ran over, picked him up, and tossed him like a bag of dirty laundry onto the top of the copier. He slammed the lid on his head, over and over again, until the glass cracked and the man slithered off the machine. He fell to one knee, striking out simultaneously.

  The blow caught Decker by surprise—in the groin. Pain shot through him like a bright, blinding light.

  The blond man pulled himself to his feet, holding on to the copier. He issued a snap kick to Decker’s left knee. The blow barely connected but it was enough to send Decker down to the floor. He watched helplessly as the man rushed around him, as he slipped through the door.

  Decker rolled to his feet. He lunged through the door and, in one single bound, leapt over the banister into the stairwell, thereby cutting off the assassin’s retreat. But the blond man wasn’t going downstairs. As soon as he saw Decker blocking his path, he made for the ladder leading back up to the roof.

  Decker cursed and dashed up the steps in pursuit. He leapt round the banister and lunged for the two legs still scrambling up the black metal ladder. The assassin kicked at his face. Then he was gone. On the roof. Decker hauled himself upward, through the hatch toward the white snowy sky, only to see the flash of a knife at his face.

  Decker ducked. He reached up with a tiger claw, trying to grab the man’s wrist, but missed. The knife swept backward and caught him on the flank of the forearm. Decker let out a scream. Then, something came over him. Instead of making him retreat through the roof hatch, the pain awakened in him something raw and primordial. It was as if everything that had happened to him, all his anger and bitterness, the dark tides he’d been storing within him for years were released all at once as the blood coursed down his forearm.

  The pain was delicious.

  Decker found himself scurrying up the last few feet of the ladder. He was out in the air, just in time to take another blow to the chest. But this time he managed to keep the knife edge at bay. He folded down on the arm, caught it under his armpit, and heaved forward.

  The blond man grunted and let go of the knife. It clattered down through the roof hatch and fell out of sight.

  Now, they were both out in the open. It was still snowing and a thin slippery layer covered most of the roof. Decker took in the assassin’s blue eyes, the scar on his cheek, the blond hair and all of that blood on his face. They were about the same size and build. A matched pair.

  Decker lashed out with a knife-hand to the side of his neck. It connected below and slightly in front of the blond man’s left ear, sending a shock to the carotid artery, the jugular vein and the vagus nerve.

  The blond man took a step backward. He tried to jab with his right but Decker clipped him with another knife-hand, this time to the radial nerve at the elbow. He followed it up with a palm strike to the man’s solar plexus. The assassin grunted and took another step backward. He staggered close to the edge.

  Why does it always have to be on a roof? Decker wondered as he caught a glimpse of Congress Court far below. Why always someplace up high?

  The blond man tried to recover. He slipped in from below, threw an elbow strike to the ribs.

  Decker caught it with a twist of the arm.

  The man issued a snap kick but missed. Then a round-house but Decker blocked it with ease. He was tiring. Decker could see that. The blond man was dropping his arms and there was a splinter of fear in his eyes.

  He feinted once to the right, then pivoted, jabbing, but Decker deflected it with a whipping-hand block so jarring that the snap of the assassin’s right wrist sounded like a gun going off. He screamed, grabbed his arm and fell back still further.

  It was as if the man were moving in slow motion now. Decker could anticipate each of his thrusts, every parry. And even when he did land a punch, Decker barely recorded it. The blows echoed inside him, like thunderclaps across a distant horizon. There was so much adrenaline coursing through his veins that Decker couldn’t feel a damn thing.

  The man glanced over his shoulder. It was two stories down to the next roof, and then another to the alley below.

  “Don’t do it,” said Decker, as if sensing the assassin’s intention. “You won’t make it.”

  Decker stepped up to grab him. The man smiled and jumped off the roof.

  For a moment, he seemed to hover at the same altitude, like some cartoon character, before plummeting down in an arc to the roof below.

  He landed hard, rolled, tried to slow down the fall, but his momentum was simply too great, and he bounced once again on the snow-covered roof and then slid off the edge to the alley below.

  Decker peered over the parapet.

  The figure was splayed out in the alley, one leg wrapped underneath him, and his head hidden by the edge of a dumpster.
He wasn’t moving.

  A few minutes later, after first wrapping up his wounded forearm with a piece of his shirt, Decker started back down the stairs. He picked up the assassin’s gun on the landing and made his way through the back door to Congress Court.

  The man still hadn’t moved. He wasn’t going anywhere. Decker could see that now as he drew near. One leg was broken. So was his right wrist, where Decker had blocked it with the edge of his forearm.

  Decker knelt down beside him. The man’s eyes were open. One of them was bright red, a cobweb of broken capillaries. There was blood coming out of his mouth. And his nose. His back was probably broken. “Who are you?” asked Decker.

  The man didn’t respond. He smiled and then arched his back as another wave of blistering pain coursed through his limbs. His right leg was wrapped completely under his body.

  “So, you can still feel,” Decker said. “Which means that your neck isn’t broken. Not yet, anyway. That’s good.” He reached out and grabbed the man by the wrist. It was a compound fracture. The bone was protruding right through the skin. Decker pressed the nerve endings, ground them under his thumb. “Your name.”

  The man grimaced but didn’t cry out. “Which one?” he replied with a grin.

  Decker noticed the tips of his fingers. They were blank. The loops, arches and whorls of his prints have been chemically peeled. “I want to know who you’re working for.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Decker pressed the nerve endings again. The man let out a howl that didn’t sound human.

  “I told you, I don’t know. He paid me remotely. I’m telling the truth. He always pays me remotely. The same client who ordered me to take out Unit 110 in Dandong and H2O2.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just business. I don’t want to know.” He stared down at his chest, at the way his leg was curled up underneath him. “I should have killed you in Dandong,” he continued, “when I first had the chance. But you weren’t on my list then. Now, look. You’ve killed me.”