Extreme Denial Read Online Free Page B

me, all right. But that didn’t seem a reason to cancel our chat.” Decker stood. “Where the hell have you been?”
    “You don’t know?”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “You haven’t been watching ?”
    “Make sense.”
    McKittrick hurried to the television set and turned it on. “Three different television crews were there. Surely one of the channels is still broadcasting from ...” His hand shook as he kept switching stations. “There.”
    At first, Decker didn’t understand what he was seeing. Abruptly the loud, confusing images sent a wave of apprehension through him. Thick black smoke choked the sky. Flames burst from windows. Amid a section of wall that had toppled, firemen struggled with hoses, spewing water toward a large blazing building. Fire trucks wailed to a stop among the chaos of other emergency vehicles, police cars, ambulances, more fire trucks. Appalled, Decker realized that some of the wailing came not from sirens but from bum victims being lifted onto stretchers, their faces charred, twisted with pain, not recognizably human. Unmoving bodies lay under blankets as policemen forced a crowd back.
    “What is it? What in God’s name happened?”
    Before McKittrick could answer, a television reporter was talking about terrorists, about the Children of Mussolini, about the worst incident yet of anti-American violence, about twenty-three American tourists killed and another forty-three injured in a massive explosion, members of a Salt Lake City tour group that had been enjoying a banquet at the Tiber Club in honor of their final night in Rome.
    “The Tiber Club?” Decker remembered the name from the list he had memorized.
    “That’s where Renata told me the terrorists like to go.” McKittrick’s skin was ashen. “She told me the plan was foolproof. Nothing could screw it up. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this! Renata swore to me that—”
    “Quit babbling.” Decker gripped McKittrick’s shoulders. “Talk to me. What did you do? ”
    “Last night.” McKittrick stopped to take several quick breaths. “After the meeting, after we argued.” McKittrick’s chest heaved. “I knew I didn’t have much time before you took the operation away from me and stole the credit for it.”
    “You actually believe that bullshit you told your father? You think I’m jealous of you?”
    “I had to do something. I couldn’t be sure my phone call to my father would solve the problem. There was a plan that Renata and I had been talking about. A perfect plan. After I left you, I went back to the cafe. Renata and the others were still in the upstairs room. We decided to put the plan into motion.”
    “Without authorization.” Decker was appalled.
    “Who was I going to get it from? You ? You’d have told me not to. You’d have done your best to have me reassigned. You’d have used the same plan yourself.”
    “I am trying very hard to keep my patience,” Decker said. On the television, flames shot from doorways, forcing firemen to stumble back as another section of wall fell. The wail of sirens intensified. Smoke-shrouded attendants loaded bodies into ambulances. “This plan. Tell me about this perfect plan.”
    “It was simple to the point of brilliance.”
    “Oh, I’m sure it was.”
    “Renata and her group would wait until the terrorists came together in one place—an apartment maybe, or the Tiber Club. Then someone from Renata’s group would hide a satchel filled with plastic explosive near where the terrorists would have to pass when they came out. As soon as they appeared, Renata would press a remote control that detonated the explosive. It would look as if the terrorists had been carrying the explosive with them and the bomb went off by mistake.” Decker listened with absolute astonishment. The room seemed to tilt. His face became numb. He questioned his sanity. This can’t be happening, he told himself. He couldn’t possibly be hearing this.
    “Simple? Brilliant?”