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
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.
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.