It took Decker several trips to take all the equipment to the Buick. He would have asked Esperanza to come in and help him, but Esperanza had said he was known in the gun shop. In case of trouble, Decker didn’t want Esperanza to be linked with him and a large purchase of weapons.
“Jesus, Decker, it looks like you’re going to start a war. What’s this? A bow and arrows?”
“And if that doesn’t work against Renata and her gang, I’ll piss on them.”
Esperanza started laughing.
“That’s the stuff. Keep loose,” Decker said.
They closed the trunk and got in the car.
Beth waited in the backseat, her eyes still red from her conversation with Decker outside Esperanza’s trailer. She made an obvious effort to rouse her spirits and be part of the group. “What were you laughing about?”
“A bad joke.” Decker repeated it.
Beth shook her head and chuckled slightly. “Sounds like a guy thing.”
“How come you bought so many canteens?” Esperanza asked. “One for each of us. But what about the other nine?”
“Actually, we’re going to fill all twelve with plant fertilizer and fuel oil.”
“What the hell does that do?”
“Makes a damned good bomb.” Decker checked his watch and started the car. “We’d better move it. It’s almost four-thirty. We’re running out of daylight.”
12
An hour later, after several other purchases, Decker steered off Cerrillos Road onto Interstate 25, but this time, he took the northbound route, heading in. the opposite direction from Albuquerque.
“Why are we leaving town?” Agitated, Beth leaned forward. “I told you, I won’t let you put me in an out-of-the-way motel. I won’t be left out.”
“That’s not why we’re leaving town. Have you ever heard the expression, There’s no law west of the Pecos?”
Beth looked mystified by the relevance of the comment. “I seem to ... In old Westerns, or maybe in a history about the Southwest.”
“Well, the Pecos the expression refers to is the Pecos River, and that’s where we’re headed.”
Twenty minutes later, he turned to the left onto state road 50 and shortly afterward reached the town of Pecos, whose architecture was dominated by traditional wood-sided peaked structures in sharp contrast to the flat-roofed stuccoed Hispanic-pueblo buildings in Santa Fe. He turned to the left again. Past Monastery Lake, where he had gone fishing for trout his first summer in the area, past the monastery for which the lake was named, he drove up an increasingly steep, winding road that was bordered by tall pine trees. The sun had descended behind the looming western bluffs, casting the rugged scenery into shadow.
“We’re going up into the Pecos Wilderness Area,” Decker said. “That’s the Pecos River on our right. In spots, it’s only about twenty feet wide. You can’t always see it because of the trees and rocks, but you can definitely hear it. What it lacks in size, it gains in speed.”
“This road is almost deserted,” Beth said. “Why did we come up here?”
“This is a fishing area. Back among the trees, you might have seen a few cabins. After Labor Day, they’re mostly unoccupied.” Decker pointed ahead. “And once in a while, someone decides to sell.”
On the right, past a curve, a sign attached to a post read, EDNA FREED REALTY, then, in smaller letters, Contact Stephen Decker, followed by a phone number.
Directly beyond the sign, Decker turned off the road, entered an opening among the fir trees, rumbled over a narrow wooden bridge above the river, and drove up a dirt lane to a clearing in front of a gray log cabin whose sloped roof was rusted metal. The small building, surrounded by dense trees and bushes, was perched on a shadowy ridge not far above the clearing; it faced the turnoff from the country road; log steps were cut into the slope, leading up to the weathered front door.
“Just your basic home away from home,” Beth said.
“I’ve been trying to sell this place for the past six months,” Decker said. “The key’s in a lockbox attached to the front door.”
Beth got out of the car, braced herself on her crutches, and shivered. “I was warm in town, but it certainly gets chilly up here once the sun is low.”
“And damp from the river,” Decker said. “That’s why I bought thermal underwear for each of us. Before we get started, we’d better put them on.”
“Thermal underwear? But we won’t be outside that long, will we?”
“Maybe all night.”
Beth looked surprised.
“There’s a lot to do.” Decker opened the Buick’s trunk. “Put on these cotton gloves and help us load these weapons. Make sure you don’t leave fingerprints on anything, including the ammunition. Do you know how to use a shotgun?”
“I do.”
“Someday you’ll have to tell me how you learned. Your injured shoulder won’t stand the shock of the recoil, of course. It would also make you awkward if you had to work a lever or a pump action to chamber a new round. That’s why I bought double-barreled shotguns. The side-by-sides are wide and flat enough, they won’t roll around if you set them on a log. You can lie down behind the log and shoot without raising the guns to aim them. You’ll be able to get two shots per weapon. Opening the breach to reload isn’t hard.”
“And what log did you have in mind?” Beth gamely asked, surprising him.
“I’m not sure. Esperanza and I are going to walk around and get a feel for the layout. Ask yourself what Renata and her friends will do when they get here tonight. How they’ll approach. What cover they’ll find most inviting. Then try to think of a position that gives you an advantage over them. It’ll be dark in an hour. After that, after we’ve got our equipment assembled, we’ll start rehearsing.”
13
And then, too frustratingly soon, it was time to go. Just before nine o’clock, in thickening darkness, Decker told Esperanza, “The last flights of the evening will soon be arriving at the Albuquerque airport. We can’t wait any longer. Do you think you can finish the rest of the preparations on your own?”
The cool night air chilled Esperanza’s breath, so that vapor could be seen coming from his mouth. “How long will you be?”
“Expect us around midnight.”
“I’ll be ready. You’d better not forget this.” Esperanza handed him the carry-on bag that had contained the million dollars but that now contained old newspapers they had found in the cabin. The money was in a duffel bag at Esperanza’s feet.
“Right,” Decker said. “The plan won’t work if Renata doesn’t think I have the money.”
“And without me beside you,” Beth said.
“That’s right, too,” Decker said. “If Renata doesn’t see us together, she’ll wonder why we split up. She’ll begin to suspect I’m keeping you out of danger while I lead her into a trap.”
“Imagine,” Beth said. “And here, all the time, I thought you decided to bring me along because of the pleasure of my company.”
The remark made Decker feel as if he’d been stuck by a needle. Was her joke good-natured or...? Not knowing what to say, he helped her into the front of the car, pushed back the passenger seat so that she had more room for her injured leg, then put her crutches in the back. Finally, when he got in beside her and shut his door, he thought of what to say. “If we can get through this ... If we can get to know each other ...”
“I thought we already did know each other.”
“But who did I get to know? Are you Beth Dwyer or Diana Scolari?”
“Didn’t you ever use fake names?”
Decker didn’t know what to say to that, either. He started the Buick, nodded tensely to Esperanza, and made a U-turn in the clearing. His headlights flashing past dense pine trees, he drove down the lane, over the bridge, and onto the deserted road to Pecos. They were on their way.
But neither of them spoke until they were back on Interstate 25, passing Santa Fe, heading toward Albuquerque.
“Ask me
,” Beth said.
“Ask ...?”
“Anything. Everything.” Her voice was heavy with emotion.
“That’s a big order.”
“Damn it, try. By the time we get to the airport, I want to know where we stand with each other.”
Decker increased speed, passing a pickup truck, trying to keep his speed under seventy-five.
“A relationship doesn’t survive on its own,” Beth said. “You have to work at it.”
“All right.” Decker hesitated, concentrating on the dark highway he sped along, feeling in a tunnel. “You once told me something about your childhood. You said your parents had such violent arguments that you were afraid your father would burst into your bedroom and kill you while you slept. You said you arranged your pillows to make them look as if you were under the covers and then you slept under the bed, so he’d attack the pillows but not be able to get at you.... Is that story true?”
“Yes. Did you suspect I lied to make you feel protective toward me?”
Decker didn’t respond.
Beth frowned with growing concern. “Is that the way you think—that people are constantly trying to manipulate you?”
“It’s the way I used to think—before I came to Santa Fe.”
“And now you’re back to your old habits.”
“Suspicion kept me alive. The fact is, if I had kept my old habits, if I hadn’t let my guard down ...” He didn’t like where his logic was taking him, so he let the sentence dangle.
“You wouldn’t have fallen in love with me. Is that what you wish?”
“I didn’t say that. I’m not sure what I wanted to say. If I hadn’t fallen in love with you, Renata would still be after me. That wouldn’t have changed. I ...” Decker’s confusion tortured him. “But I did fall in love with you, and if I could go back and do it all over again, if I could change the past ...”
“Yes?” Beth sounded afraid.
“I’d do everything the same.”
Beth exhaled audibly. “Then you believe me.”
“Everything comes down to trust.”
“And faith,” Beth said.
Decker’s hands ached on the steering wheel. “A lot of faith.”
14
Apprehensive, Decker left the Buick in the brightly lit rental-car lot next to the Albuquerque airport and walked with Beth into the terminal. On the second level, near the incoming baggage area, he surrendered the car keys to the Avis clerk, provided information about mileage and how much fuel was in the car, paid cash, and folded his receipt in his pocket.
“Catching a late plane out?” the clerk asked.
“Yes. We tried to make our vacation last as long as possible.”
“Come back to the Land of Enchantment.”
“We certainly will.”
Out of sight from the Avis counter, Decker guided Beth into a crowd that was descending from the terminal’s upper levels, where the evening’s final flights were arriving. Trying to make it seem as if he and Beth had just flown in, they went with the crowd down the escalator to the terminal’s bottom level and out into the parking garage.
“And now it begins,” Decker murmured.
The sodium arc lights in the garage cast an eerie yellow glow. Although Decker was certain that none of Renata’s group would have risked attracting the attention of security guards by hanging around the airport’s arrival gates, he couldn’t be as confident that a surveillance team was not in the garage, watching his Cherokee. The garage wasn’t as carefully guarded as the airport was. Once in a while, a patrol car went through, but the team would see it coming and pretend to be loading luggage into a vehicle, then go back to watching as soon as the patrol car was gone. But if a surveillance team was in the garage, it was doubtful they would try to abduct Decker and Beth in so public a place, with only one exit from the airport. Travelers getting into nearby vehicles would see the attack and get a license number, then alert a security officer, who would phone ahead and arrange to, have the road from the airport blocked. No, with too many opportunities for the attempted abduction to go wrong, the surveillance team would want to wait for privacy. In the meantime, they would use a cellular telephone to report to Renata that they had seen Decker carrying a bag that matched the description of the one containing the million dollars. Renata would be lulled into thinking that Decker didn’t suspect she was in the area. After all, if he thought he was in immediate danger, he wouldn’t be carrying the bagful of money, would he? He would have hidden it.
The Cherokee was to the left at the top of the stairs on the garage’s second level. Decker unlocked the car, helped Beth into the front seat, threw the bag and her crutches into the back, and hurriedly got in, locking the doors, inserting his ignition key.
He hesitated.
“What are you waiting for?” Beth asked.
Decker stared at his right hand where it was about to turn the key. Sweat beaded his brow. “Now is when we find out whether I’m right or wrong that Renata didn’t rig this car with explosives.”
“Well, if you’re wrong, we’ll never know,” Beth said. “To hell with it. We were talking about faith. Do it. Turn the key.”
Decker actually smiled as he obeyed. Waiting for the explosion that would blow the car apart, he heard the roar of the engine. “Yes!” He backed out of the parking space and drove as quickly as safety allowed past travelers putting luggage into their cars, any of whom might be his enemy. A half a minute later, he was leaving the garage, stopping at one of the collection booths, paying the attendant, and joining the stream of cars speeding from the airport. Headlights glared.
His heart pounded furiously as he rounded a curve and pointed toward the lights gleaming in almost every window of the fourteen-story Best Western hotel. “Right now, there’s a lot of activity in one of those rooms. The needle on their homing-device monitor is telling them this car is in motion.” He wanted to increase speed but stopped the impulse when he saw the roof lights of a police car in front of him.
“I’m so nervous, I can’t stop my knees from shaking,” Beth said.
“Concentrate on controlling your fear.”
“I can’t.”
“You have to.”
Ahead, the police car turned a corner.
Decker lifted the hatch on the storage compartment that separated the two front seats. He took Esperanza’s service pistol from where Esperanza had left it in the car when they had flown to New York. “They’ll be out of their room now, hurrying toward the hotel’s parking lot.”
“How do you stop from being afraid?”
“I don’t.”
“But you just said—”
“To control it, not stop it. Fear’s a survival mechanism. It gives you strength. It makes you alert. It can save your life, but only if you keep it under control. If it controls you, it’ll get you killed.”
Beth studied him hard. “Obviously I’ve got a lot to learn about you.”
“The same here. It’s like everything that happened with us before the attack on my house last Friday night was our honeymoon. Now the marriage has begun.” Decker sped onto the interstate, merging with a chaos of headlights. “They’ve had time to reach the hotel’s parking lot. They’re getting in their vehicles.”
“Honeymoon? Marriage? ... Was what you just said a proposal?”
“... Would that be such a bad idea?”
“I’d always disappoint you. I could never be the ideal woman you risked your life for.”
“That makes us even. I’m definitely not the ideal man.”
“You’re giving a good imitation of that hero I told you I dreamed about as a little girl.”
“Heroes are fools. Heroes get themselves killed.” Decker increased speed to keep pace with traffic, which was doing sixty-five in a fifty-five-mile-an-hour zone. “Renata and her friends will be rushing toward the interstate now. The homing-device monitor will tell them which direction I’ve taken. I have to keep ahead of them. I can’t let them pull abreast
of me and force me off a deserted section of the highway.”
“Do you mind talking?”
“Now?”
“Will it distract you? If it doesn’t, talking would help me not to be so afraid.”
“In that case, talk.”
“What’s your worst fault?”
“Excuse me?”
“You were courting me all summer, showing me your best side. What’s your worst?”
“You tell me yours.” Decker squinted toward the confusion of headlights in his rearview mirror, watching for any vehicle that approached more rapidly than the others.
“I asked first.”
“You’re serious?”
“Very.”
As the speed limit changed to sixty-five, Decker reluctantly began.
15
He told her that his father had been a career officer in the military and that the family had lived on bases all over the United States, moving frequently. “I grew up learning not to get attached to people or places.” He told her that his father had not been demonstrative with affection and in fact had seemed to be embarrassed about showing any emotion, whether it was anger, sadness, or joy. “I learned to hide what I felt.” He told her that when he entered the military, a logical choice for the son of a career officer, the special-operations training he received gave him further reinforcement in controlling his emotions.
“I had an instructor who took a liking to me and spent time talking with me on our off-hours. We used to get into philosophical discussions, a lot of which had to do with how to survive inhuman situations and yet not become inhuman. How to react to killing someone, for example. Or how to try to handle seeing a buddy get killed. He showed me something in a book about the mind and emotions that I’ve never forgotten.”