THE WAVE: A John Decker Thriller

by J. G. Sandom

  He climbed and climbed around volcanic outpourings, round rings of magma, rotund as love handles on the mountainside. The road began to zigzag dangerously, round bends and hairpin turns, meandering, round oxbows and capricious straight-aways that gave up suddenly, only to turn again, and down, and round. That’s when he saw it in the distance, the other car.

  It was a Renault, after all – a Clio; some model he’d never heard of. Then it vanished around the bend. Decker stepped on the accelerator. He leaned forward toward the steering column, straining his eyes. There it was again. He pressed the accelerator to the floor until the Citroën whined. He was gaining on them. He could see Emily’s hair, like spun gold, gleaming through the window. It was then he heard the motorcycles.

  The first shot swept across his windshield, shattering the glass, and covering him with tiny flecks that looked like diamonds in the brilliant February light. He shook the shards out of his eyes. The wind blasted his face. He heard the sound of his own engine screaming. The wind was shockingly cold considering they were off the coast of Africa. It numbed his skin.

  Decker shook his head. He ducked just as the second volley coursed across the cab. The other windows of the Saxo shattered. Now wind swept in from every side. Decker could barely see. Some of the glass had gone into his eyes. They felt like they were on fire.

  The car swerved to the side and he saw the guardrail just too late.

  The Saxo struck and bounced and jumped back on the road, almost instinctively. He pressed ahead at breakneck speed. For a brief moment, Decker felt invincible. He turned around just as a BMW Rockster barreled into view. A man in a bright red leather suit, holding a machine gun, angled by. He opened up on Decker’s car and the Citroën throbbed. Decker held his breath. He looked about. Miraculously, he wasn’t hit. The wheels still rolled. The engine still pulsed with life.

  Decker squeezed the steering wheel. He saw the distant sea below, the road diminishing. He skidded left and struck the 1150 Rockster squarely on the side. There was a thump – quite silent really, surprisingly subtle – and the motorcycle disappeared from sight behind a bush, only to reappear a moment later, spiraling skyward through the air at one hundred and twenty miles per hour. The motorcycle rolled and rolled, then finally tumbled out of sight, just as another volley tore the roof off in a burst of light.

  Decker ducked. He couldn’t even see the road; he drove from memory. He turned the wheel and another volley ripped the headrests into pieces. There was nothing left. Decker lifted his head and the wind scratched at his face like a cat. The top of the car was completely gone. He felt as though he were driving a jeep.

  He looked to his left and saw the distant ocean twinkle. He was straddling a cliff. The water glistened several hundred feet below.

  Decker turned and saw a stream of bullets traveling toward him in what appeared to be slow motion, like a swarm of bees, or a school of minnows swimming underwater. He saw the individual bullets, the single stray that tumbled suddenly, and struck him in the arm, and ripped that small filet of flesh out of his bicep with a strident twang – like the breaking of a violin string. Decker gritted his teeth.

  He turned and saw the second motorcyclist. He was right behind him, dressed in same red leather jacket and red helmet. He was aiming his black gun.

  Decker stomped on the breaks. The car squealed and slowed as he downshifted, stripping gears.

  The second Rockster hit the rear of Decker’s vehicle, climbed up upon the bumper, then the trunk. The rear tire of the BMW still rolled along the road, but the front was stuck now, in the back seat of the car! Decker could hear the two-spark, 1150 boxer engine roaring right behind him.

  He stepped on the accelerator just as the second motorcyclist fired. Three shots tore up the dashboard. The front wheel of the Rockster suddenly broke free. It rolled back down along the Saxo’s trunk, bounced on the bumper, and dropped back to the road.

  The motorcyclist tried desperately to regain control. He was almost upright when Decker applied the breaks again.

  This time the motorcycle clipped the bumper, bucked like a bronco and hurled the driver up into the air, directly over Decker’s car, the windshield and the hood. He landed somewhere just ahead. Decker heard the grim, telltale thump thump as he crushed the man against the road. He turned and saw the crimson helmet shatter like an egg, the head unraveling, unwinding from the body as he pirouetted out of sight.

  Decker stepped on the accelerator. He straightened up and felt the wind assault his face. His eyes were tearing, but he could clearly see the ocean to his left, a vast expanse of blue. He was paralleling a plantation, a banana farm below, and it appeared as though he were driving on the palms themselves, across their very branches. He pulled up sharply and almost struck the dirt embankment. He saw the Clio up ahead. He was gaining on them once again. He was finally catching up. Then they turned off without warning, into the trees, and disappeared from view.

  Decker skidded off the main road, straightened out, and barreled down a dirt path through the trees. Green palms and flowers blocked the sun. Bright vines, broad leaves and long tenacious grasses grasped at the wheels, smacked at the Saxo’s flanks. The vegetation was so thick that Decker couldn’t really see the path. He moved ahead by instinct, following the contours of the land.

  The path seemed to run around the border of a grand plantation. It snaked and turned and meandered through a kind of gully. Then it simply petered out. Decker kept driving. He bulldozed his way through fronds and flowers and emerged, at last, along a small bald ridge, right at the base of the volcano.

  There was the car – the two-door, off-white Renault Clio. It was parked only a dozen yards away, and it was empty.

  Emily was gone.

  Chapter 39

  Thursday, February 3 – 12:33 PM

  La Palma, The Canary Islands

  Decker jumped out of the Saxo, tore across the open ground, and knelt down by the Clio. There was some kind of cavern entrance just ahead. It was large and round, and Decker suddenly realized that it was probably a lava tube, a holdover from some previous eruption. It poured out of the mountainside.

  He sprinted toward the cavern. He paused for a moment just outside the entrance, painfully aware of his black silhouette against the open lava tube. He’d make an easy target, he thought. But he had no choice. He rolled across the ground. Nobody fired at him. He looked about. The lava tube was large, at least ten feet across and ten feet tall. The air was cool and somewhat moist inside. He leapt to his feet and started running down the tunnel.

  It didn’t take long for his eyes to adjust to the dark. Decker had only gone about twenty yards when he noticed a kind of mining car or cart up ahead. As he drew closer he realized it was just an ordinary golf cart. He climbed in. Someone or something was moving down the tunnel. He felt the dashboard with his hands, felt for a key, and turned it. A moment later the golf cart came to life. Decker flipped on the headlights and the lava tube unrolled before him, glassy and black. He touched the accelerator. The cart began to move down the path.

  Decker had to concentrate to keep her steady through the tunnel. He traveled in this way for what seemed like miles when he sensed a change in the air temperature. The tunnel doglegged left, then right. He saw another cart parked up ahead. He pressed the breaks, slowed down, and took his weapon out.

  The other cart looked abandoned. Decker got out and approached the vehicle with care. No, he was wrong. It wasn’t empty. Two men were lying in the back. They were both dead. And then he noticed that the tunnel appeared to be blocked just up ahead, by a large boulder. It had been placed there in the center of the path on purpose.

  Decker knelt down. He cocked his head. He tried to sense if anyone else was in the tunnel. But there was nothing, no one. He was alone . . . except for the two corpses in the cart. Decker checked their pockets. There. He felt a wallet. He pulled it out and held it up before him in the headlights. The CIA ID stood up just like a little flag – the photograph, the name Co
lin L. Strand. And this must be Nick Thompson, Decker thought, Warhaftig’s other man. He dropped the wallet in the cart. He backed away and started up the tunnel.

  After only about ten yards, as he was beginning to lose visibility, he noticed a break in the stone wall. It was another tunnel, just a few feet off the ground. Decker climbed into the opening. He started to sweat. Then he realized that the temperature was rising. The lava tube had taken him due south from underneath the extinct volcano outside of Santa Cruz, all the way to the Cumbre Vieja. This volcano was still active. It was only then that he noticed the faint smell of obnoxious fumes. He held his nose. There was a light on just ahead. He pressed on through the tunnel, turned right and came upon another lava tube, much larger than the last. It led into some sort of cavern. He could see it clearly now; it was well lit. He could hear the purring of machinery.

  Decker crawled forward on his hands and knees along the tunnel floor. When he reached the mouth of the lava tube, he finally got his first good look inside the cavern. It was huge. It must have been at least thirty feet high, or higher, and a couple of hundred yards in length. Roughly circular, it looked like a cathedral carved out the heart of the volcano. The ceiling was decorated with black stalactites, shiny, obsidianesque, Goth chandeliers. It was even hotter here and Decker wondered just how close he was to some still active lava tube. It felt as though he were standing in a cauldron. Somewhere, only a few yards underneath his feet, perhaps, the stone was percolating. He scanned the cave, taking in each detail.

  There were two sets of lights mounted on towers across the way. They looked like concert lights. Immediately below the tower, on the left, was a kind of makeshift hut made out of packing crates and strips of black tarpaulin. Other crates and boxes were stacked around the cave. A golf cart was parked roughly in the middle. And by the tower on the other side, someone had pitched two tents. Decker crawled forward carefully. He heard voices up ahead. Despite the humming of what he guessed must be a generator, he could clearly hear the guttural sound of Arabic conversation. Decker looked up. A pair of crates blocked his view. He shimmied forward slowly, dragging his legs, and stopped.

  There was a foot in front of him. It was wearing a lady’s shoe. The crate shielded the remainder of the body. He turned the corner and came upon the prostrate figure of a woman. She was bald, and rather old. And she was very dead. Doris White; it had to be. There was another body next to her – a man. Who else but Dr. White? He looked just like his photographs. He looked still warm. He was holding the woman’s hand, Decker noticed, even in death, and this trivial detail stung like a paper cut across his heart.

  “Agent Decker,” somebody said. He spun about. There was no one there. He curled into a ball behind the crates. The voice had sounded like it was coming from immediately behind him.

  “Agent Decker, we know you’re there. Why don’t you come out and join your lady friend?”

  Decker got up on his knees. He took his gun out of his holster and peeked around the crate.

  Two Arabic-looking men were standing by the tents. Swenson was on her knees, in front of them. One of the men held her by the hair. He was tall and muscular, with a thick mustache. But it was the smaller man who captured Decker’s gaze.

  He was thin, wiry, with a narrow face. His eyes were dark, beguiling. He had a wispy black beard, thin as an adolescent’s. It was El Aqrab, Decker was sure of it.

  The Arab smiled a wolfish grin, stretched out his arms, and said, “Welcome to the Canary Islands, Agent Decker.” He laughed. “It’s good to finally meet you, after all this time. In truth, I feel like I already know you.” He pointed down at Emily. “And we’ve already met your friend.”

  “Let her go,” said Decker.

  “I’d be happy to. Why don’t you throw your weapon down and I’ll release her.”

  “An agent never gives up his gun. That’s the first rule,” Decker said. “Give up your gun and you’re dead. Where’s the bomb?”

  El Aqrab laughed. “Always the professional,” he said. “Don’t you care about Ms. Swenson? I was told you did.”

  “The only way out of here is through me.”

  “You really didn’t know that, did you?” El Aqrab said whimsically. “But it’s true. I concede that point to you. You stand between us and the only exit. That’s what makes it so . . . interesting.” He said something to his partner in a low voice.

  The other man pulled Swenson by the hair. Then he kicked her with his knee so that she rolled onto her stomach. She tried to crawl away but he kicked her again. Her body arched and slammed against a crate. The man reached down and grabbed her by the collar of her blouse. He lifted her off the ground. There was a loud rip as the material gave way. He began to tear it from her back. She tried to move, to get away, but he grabbed her by the jeans. He ripped them down, exposing her white panties underneath. Slowly and methodically, he took her jeans off. Then he pulled her by the hair again and made her stand before him. She was crying now. She was mumbling incoherently. The man stuffed one hand into her bra. Then, with the other, he pulled the bra up, and Emily’s breasts fell free, exposed and vulnerable.

  Decker fired a shot above the large man’s head but he didn’t even move. He simply stood there, holding Emily. El Aqrab said something in Arabic that Decker couldn’t hear. Decker aimed his gun. He fixed the figure in his sights. A bead of sweat dripped in his eye. He hesitated. He wiped his face with his sleeve, and suddenly withdrew.

  He was afraid to shoot. He was afraid of hitting Emily.

  The man pushed Emily into a nearby folding chair. He took his belt off. At first, Decker was convinced that he was going to beat her. Then he noticed he was using it to tie her hands. The man moved back behind the chair. As he looked at Decker, as he stared directly at him, he snagged her panties in his fingers and pulled them down along her long brown legs. Swenson sat there, naked, barely awake, her head tilted to the side. El Aqrab stepped up beside her.

  “Give me your weapon, Agent Decker.”

  Decker ducked behind the crate. He couldn’t bear watching. He knew exactly what was coming. He sat on the ground, his back to the crate, and pressed the barrel of his gun against his face. He closed his eyes. He could feel tears coursing down his cheeks. He cleared his throat and breathed. He breathed again. When he finally shifted back onto his knees and peeked over the crate, El Aqrab had already started wrapping Emily in tendrils of metal ribbon. Decker watched him as he worked.

  He was punctilious. He was so careful, almost dainty in his movements. I can’t give up my gun, Decker thought. If I give up my gun, I’m dead. And if I’m dead, she’s dead. I can’t give up my gun. No matter what they do to her. She’s just one person. There are forty million lives at stake.

  “Is it not written?” Decker shouted. “I say, is it not written? ‘It is He Who hath made you His vicegerent on the earth. He hath raised you in ranks, some above others, that He may try you in the gifts He hath given you?’ How then can you destroy the world, set off this mega-tsunami? Is it not unlawful to assail the environment? And the Ahadith say–”

  “Don’t speak to me of sullying the earth. The West has polluted the planet for countless generations, through your destruction of the ozone layer, through global warming. Your cars and smokestacks, your lifestyle chokes the world. A little at a time, to be sure. A decade here, a decade there. A languorous strangulation.” He laughed. “What I will do will cleanse the planet of your filth. Now, give me your weapon, Agent Decker. I’m warning you for the last time. Give it to me, or your woman burns.”

  “Then burn her,” Decker shouted back.

  He started to worm his way along the ground. If he could outflank them, he might just have a chance. There was no cover to his left, but to his right . . . to his right ran a series of crates and boxes for a good ten yards, or more. If he could get around them, find more cover, he might just cut them down before they had a chance to fire back. As long as El Aqrab kept talking.

  “Did you hear me? Burn h
er. The girl means nothing to me. Isn’t that what you do, burn people? Isn’t that the ultimate aesthetic of Mohammed Hussein, the infamous El Aqrab? Or should I call you Jamal ben Saad today?”

  The name seemed to dangle in the air. It seemed to linger for a moment, echoing.

  “What did you say?” El Aqrab’s voice faltered for the first time.

  “Don’t you know your own name? But I guess that’s always been your problem, hasn’t it, Jamal? You don’t know who you are. Perhaps there was so little there to begin with that you had to assume somebody else’s name and background, some real persona, someone of substance. But you can’t rent bravery, Jamal.” Decker squirmed behind the first box in the line. “Tell me,” he said. “What happened to you after your father and brother cooperated with the Israelis? What happened to you at Ansar II?”

  “Nothing,” said ben Saad. “Absolutely nothing.” He laughed.

  And it was only then, with that one simple response, that Decker realized what had happened. “It was you,” he said. The truth exploded in his head. “It wasn’t your father, or your brother,” he continued. “It was you who cut a deal with the Israelis! And then you set them up – your own father and brother and stepmother – set them up so that Amal would kill them.” Decker poked his head out from around a crate, for just a second.

  El Aqrab had finished tying Emily. She was dressed from head to foot in magnesium ribbon linked to tiny bladders of explosives. The sight of her tanned skin bulging through the bright metallic sheen burned itself into his eyes.

  Decker leaned his back against the crate. He tried to block it out. His heart was racing. He was sweating uncontrollably. He wiped the perspiration from his eyes with his left sleeve. Then he shouted, “It was all about revenge.” Decker dropped onto his hands and knees, and started crawling forward once again. Keep him talking. Keep him talking and you have a chance.