Extreme Denial Read Online Free

one of the men they killed was innocent. That’s why we’re not in the assassination business.”
    “Fine. Now you listen to me,” McKittrick said. “If we let those bastards get away because we don’t have the guts to do what’s right, both of us will be out of a job.”
    “Noon tomorrow.”
    “What?”
    “Go to your apartment and stay there,” Decker said. “Don’t do anything. Don’t contact the woman. Don’t go out for a newspaper. Don’t do anything. I will knock on your door at noon sharp. I will tell you what our superiors have decided to do about you. If I were you, I’d have my bags packed.”
    7
    Happy fortieth birthday, Decker told himself. In his bathroom mirror, the haggard expression on his face confirmed how poorly he had slept because of his preoccupation with McKittrick. His headache from jet lag and the choking haze of cigarette smoke he had been forced to breathe persisted. A late-night room-service meal of fettuccine and chicken marsala sat heavily in his stomach. He seemed to have gained a few more lines of character in his rugged features, the start of crow’s-feet around his watchful aquamarine eyes. As if all of that wasn’t enough, he found a gray hair in his slightly long, wavy, sandy hair. Muttering, he jerked it out.
    Saturday morning. The start of the weekend for most people, Decker thought, but not in my line of work. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt the sense of leisure that he associated with a true weekend. For no reason that he immediately understood, he remembered following McKittrick down the Spanish Steps and past the house where Keats had died. He imagined Keats coughing his life away, the TB filling him up, choking him. So young, but already having achieved greatness.
    I need some time off.
    Decker put on jogging clothes, tried to ignore the hazy automobile exhaust and the crowded sidewalks, and ran to the international real estate consulting firm that he had reported to the day before, satisfied that his erratic route would keep anyone from following him. After showing his identification, he was admitted to an office that had a scrambler attached to its phone. Five minutes later, he was talking to his supervisor at a similar international real estate consulting firm in Alexandria, Virginia. The supervisor had a scrambler calibrated to the same frequency as was Decker’s.
    The conversation lasted fifteen minutes and made Decker even more frustrated. He learned that McKittrick’s father had been informed of Decker’s intentions, probably by means of a phone call that McKittrick had made to his father late the night before (Decker could only hope that McKittrick had used a pay phone and spoken with discretion). The father, not just a legend in the intelligence community but a former chairman of the National Security Council who still retained considerable political influence, had questioned Decker’s own professionalism and accused Decker of attempting to have McKittrick transferred so that Decker could take the credit for McKittrick’s achievement in finding the terrorists. While Decker’s superior claimed that he privately sided with Decker over McKittrick, the fact was that prudence and his pension forced him to ignore Decker’s warnings and to keep McKittrick in place. “Baby-sit him,” the superior said. “Prevent him from making mistakes. Verify the rest of the information in his reports. We’ll pass the information to the Italian authorities and pull both of you out. I promise you’ll never have to work with him again.”
    “It’s right now I’m worried about.”
    Decker’s run back to his hotel did nothing to ease his frustration. He placed towels on the floor of his room and did 150 push-ups, then the same amount of sit-ups, sweat dripping from his strong shoulders, narrow hips, and sinewy legs. He practiced several martial-arts moves, then showered and put on fresh jeans as well as a clean blue oxford-cloth shirt. His brown