THE WAVE: A John Decker Thriller (32 page)
Read THE WAVE: A John Decker Thriller Online
Authors: J.G. Sandom
She took another drink, braced herself, and said, “Like I told you earlier. Doris was abducted. This morning.” She put her glass down on the floor. “By three Arabic-looking men. And then a nurse said James called just two nights ago, from the Canary Islands. So I phoned the Parador Hotel in Santa Cruz. That’s where he normally stays. They said he’s taken a room there, but they haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since he checked in. No one knows where he is. He went hiking day before yesterday, and never came back.”
Decker sighed. “There’s nothing you can do here, Emily,” he said. “Frankly, I don’t know why you came.”
Swenson stood up. “What? I thought I should tell you,” she said. “About Doris, I mean. And James. Excuse me, but I thought kidnapping was a federal offense,” she added sarcastically.
“You could have just telephoned. You’re probably just over-reacting. Why don’t you go back to Woods Hole? Let me look into this. I’ll call you if anything turns up.”
“What are you talking about? What’s wrong with you, Decker? I’m not making this shit up. Hey! Remember me? I’m Emily Swenson – the woman who saved your life.”
He smiled, climbed to his feet. Then he shrugged and said, “I’m really rather busy right now, Emily. I’m not trying to be callous, but Dr. White’s disappearance isn’t high on my list of priorities. I don’t know what happened to your friend Doris. Perhaps Dr. White wanted her moved to another facility. Happens all the time. And just because some ‘Arabic-looking’ men were involved doesn’t mean it’s a conspiracy. There are lots of perfectly normal, law-abiding Arab-Americans in this country.”
Swenson peered down at the floor. Then she glanced up, wide-eyed, embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to make it sound like . . . like they all look, you know . . . alike. Oh, God. You know what I mean.” She picked up Decker’s book from the dining table, displaying it before her. “Look at this guy,” she added, pointing at the dust jacket. “Tell me he doesn’t look just like that picture of El Aqrab in all the papers. They could be brothers.”
Decker took the book from her hand. He studied the photograph. “A much younger brother, perhaps,” he said. “And fatter too. Yeah, they look alike. That’s the problem. Everyone looks alike through foreign eyes. The other. The generic enemy. The Islamic horde.” He dropped the book back on the table. “Okay. I promise,” he continued. “I’ll look into it. On one condition, though.”
“What’s that?”
“That you go back to Woods Hole and let me handle it. And that you relax and drink your scotch. Okay?”
Swenson moved back toward the sofa. She plopped down on the cushions and said, “Those are two conditions.” Then she reached down, picked up her glass, and took another slug of her drink.
“It’s just not a good time now, Emily, that’s all. I’m on a case.”
“I thought
I
was your case. Don’t tell me you didn’t recognize that guy who shot you? Whatever,” she said. “I guess that’s why you don’t have a coffee table.”
“What?” He sat back down beside her.
“This place could use a woman’s touch.”
“I’m hardly ever here.” Decker studied Swenson carefully, taking in each curve, each line of her face.
“What are you staring at?” she said.
“You’re the most . . . Nothing.” A heavy silence settled on the room. “How did you get to Woods Hole anyway?” Decker added, finally.
Swenson watched him struggle, trying to fill the space. “Born in Chance, South Dakota,” she said. “Gateway to the Badlands. It’s famous, you know. Doc Holiday lived there for a spell.” She took another sip of scotch and the living room blushed with heat.
“Actually, my dad’s a scientist too – a geologist. The ocean always seemed like such an incredible place when I was growing up. Opposites attract, I guess. We lived in a part of the country about as different from the sea as you can get. But it was an inland sea once, millions of years ago, and my dad used to bring home fossils from his digs. I guess you could say I ended up like him. Oceanography is geology in its liquid state.” She laughed. “That was a joke, Decker. A sciency, nurdy kind of joke – but still a joke.”
Decker smiled. “How about your mom?”
“She died of cancer when I was twelve.”
“Sorry to hear that.” Decker turned away. For a moment, neither of them spoke.
“I got my degree at USC,” she said. “But something happened, so I came east.”
“What happened?”
“You really are a cop, aren’t you, Agent Decker? You go straight to the dark side.”
“Actually, I’m a cryptanalyst forensic examiner. A code breaker. Most people join Homeland Security with visions of James Bond or Jack Ryan in their heads. In truth, most agents end up being more like something out of a Dilbert cartoon. You fight the bureaucracy more than the bad guys.”
“I had an affair with one of my professors.”
“What?”
“That’s why I came east. It ended badly.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m not.” She laughed. The scotch was going to her head. “It’s quite a funny story, actually. We’d ended the affair, you see, but we were scheduled to take this dive off the New Jersey coast, in a DSV called the
Alvin
. That’s a Deep Submergence Vehicle, and those kinds of opportunities don’t happen along every day. Anyway, we were descending and Dubinsky . . . That was the professor’s name. E.J. Dubinsky.”
“I think I’ve heard of him.”
Swenson smiled. “Have you?”
“Didn’t he write
This Primal Earth
? It was a best-seller.”
“That’s the one,” she answered with a laugh. “Anyway, we were about half an hour into the dive when E.J. tried to kiss me. I pulled away and something happened to the ship. To this day, I don’t know what it was. We lost power. I thought it was some kind of trick or something, a kind of ruse to scare me. E.J. was always pulling shit like that. Anyway, I guess I kind of lost it. Haven’t set foot in a DSV since. Give me the heebie-jeebies now.”
“Was it on purpose?”
She shook her head. “Now, I don’t think so. But at the time . . . It would have been just like her.”
“Her?”
“E.J.’s a woman.”
“Oh,” said Decker. He looked away. “I didn’t know.” He took another sip of his drink.
Swenson laughed. It was completely unrestrained and genuine. It liberated her. “Don’t misunderstand me, Agent Decker. I’m not gay or anything. It was just one of those things.”
“What things?”
“Oh, I don’t know. When you get as much male attention as I do, it was probably inevitable that I should run in the other direction at some point in my life. Am I embarrassing you?”
“No, not at all.”
“Then why are you blushing? I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this. I must be drunk.”
“Already?” Decker stood up. He strolled over to the table and picked up the bottle of Dalwinnie. Then he walked back to Swenson and poured her another drink. “Just to be sure,” he added with a grin.
“Have you no honor, Cryptanalyst Forensic Examiner Decker?”
“You’ve had a tough day.”
“Oh, I see. It’s a pity drink.”
Decker poured himself another scotch and sat back on the sofa. He put the bottle on the floor beside his feet. “Are you always this combative?” he replied.
Swenson kicked her shoes off. She pulled her feet up on the sofa next to his. “Am I being combative?” She laughed and moved a little closer. She wiggled her toes. “I thought I was flirting.” She took the glass of scotch from Decker’s hand, and rested it on the floor. Then she leaned forward, bringing her face close, only inches away, until she could feel his breath on her lips.
“Kiss me, Agent Decker.” His eyes were gray, dotted with blue and green.
Decker glanced away. He reached down for his glass and placed it inbetween them. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” he said.
“Why not? What’s the matter, don’t you like me? Perhaps I’m not your type. What is your type, anyway?”
“That’s not what I meant. It’s just . . . ” He hesitated. “It’s just that I’m working on this case, and you’re a part of it. It wouldn’t be, you know – professional.” Decker stood up and walked over to the CD player on his trunk. He pressed a button and the air was suddenly filled with saxophone, piano, drums and double bass.
Swenson recognized the tune. It was one hundred percent Charles Mingus, from the album
Mingus Ah Um
, but she couldn’t recall the name of the track. Goodbye something.
Decker turned and, for a moment, the way the lamplight caught his face, the way it seemed to wrap around one side, to glaze his skin, he could have been some kind of Idiacanthidae, with photophores along the angle of his chin, equipped with bioluminescence.
“Why did you join the FBI?” she asked him. “I told you my tawdry tale. Ever kill anyone?”
Decker looked away. “As a matter of fact, I have. Just a few weeks ago.”
“I’m sorry! I was only kidding.”
“Were you? It’s okay. Really. I was picking at your wounds. Besides, I’ve never really talked about it. Not even with that shrink the Bureau assigned me. Maybe it’s time.” He offered up a smile. “It’s not that common, you know. I mean, not like in the movies. Believe it or not, most agents don’t even discharge their weapons during their careers, at least not in the field. My dad was a cop for fifteen years and he never fired his gun.” He shrugged. “I was called out to translate some telephone transmissions at a farmhouse in New Liberty, not far from where I grew up. That’s where it all began.”
He told her the story about McNally and the White Apocalypse. When it was over, Swenson took him by the hand and, this time, he didn’t pull away. Then she reached out and ran a finger tenderly along the white scar on his brow. “Is that how you got this?”
“No, that was a traffic accident. When I was a boy.”
“What happened?”
“Drunk driver. I don’t remember much. Lost my memory.” He paused. “Lost both my parents too.”
“I’m so sorry, John,” she said. “Who raised you, then?”
“My mother’s sister and her husband. They took me in.”
“How horrible. I know what it’s like to lose a parent, but not both parents. At least you were brought up by someone who cared, not in some orphanage or something.”
Decker laughed. “You have no idea.”
For a long time she just stared at him. Then she reached down and took another sip of her drink. “Didn’t you get along with your aunt and uncle?”
“Well enough,” he said. “I like my uncle. Tom is a decent man.”
“And your aunt?”
“My mother’s sister wasn’t too thrilled to suddenly have a child to raise. She never really liked children. At least, not like a mother should. She and Tom didn’t have any of their own, and–”
“What does that mean? ‘Not like a mother should.’”
“I’d rather not talk about it.”
“What happened, John?”
“I said, I’d rather not talk about it.”
Swenson got up from the sofa. She wandered off and stared at the books in the bookcase. He was hiding something. That much was clear. But what it was, she had no idea. Something dark. Something best left alone.
After a moment, Swenson turned, took another sip from her drink and said, “Is that why you became a code breaker?”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s no logic to a car accident. No motive. No hidden pattern or agenda. No truth, even. It’s just . . . random.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’ve spent your whole life solving puzzles, John, breaking codes. But some things – they can never be explained. They’re inherently illogical, unsolvable.”
“Like the randomness of a traffic accident?”
“Yeah,” she said sadly. “Or love.” She sat back on the sofa. She put her glass back on the floor, leaned forward and tried to kiss him.
Decker pulled away. He got up stiffly from the sofa. He looked down at his glass, then back at her and said, “Emily?”
“Yes?”
He struggled, trying to locate the right words. They seemed to float just out of reach.
“Just say it, John. What is it?”
“Would it be possible to cause a mega-tsunami?”
For a moment she hesitated. The question seemed to spin up out of nowhere. “That isn’t what I thought you were going to say.”
“Well, is it?”
“What do you mean, cause it? You mean set one off intentionally?”
He nodded. “You know. Like that volcano in the Canary Islands. The Cumbre Vieja.”
“As long as it’s quiescent, the volcano isn’t dangerous.” She paused. “But to cause a volcano to erupt?” She shook her head. “You’d need a hell of a lot of dynamite. Maybe with an atom bomb or something. James has some pretty crazy theories about vulcan stimulation. I guess it’s possible.” She laughed. “Luckily the Canary Islands aren’t a nuclear power. Why do you ask?”
“Just curious,” he answered. “Never mind.” He smiled a feeble smile. He looked down at his watch. “It’s getting late,” he said, and downed his scotch. “I guess I’ll sleep out here.”