“Drive carefully,” Decker cautioned.

“You be careful,” Jonathan cautioned back.

When the taillights were dots in the distance, Decker started a gentle jog back toward the barn, gun in hand.

Armed and dangerous, he was a force with which to be reckoned.

35

The barren night reminded Decker of funerals, specifically of cops murdered while doing the job. Those left behind—the grieving parents, the prostrate spouses, and the bewildered children—had a sameness to their wretched faces like the sameness to the color black. In Judaism, Torah is light and light is God. Hell wasn’t fire and brimstone and devils and torture. Hell was an abyss without sensation, without end.

Slashes of rain slapped Decker’s face. Without the protection of the plastic bags, his shoes and socks had become soaked, but that was of little consequence. There were other things on his mind— Chaim… Donatti… Merrin… Rina and the children. As he neared the back door, he felt adrenaline kick in, his senses heighten.

Opening the door a fraction of an inch. Playing mental games to ward off that terrifying fear of a gun’s bore suddenly popping into his face. Only his heartbeat and breathing for company.

A few more inches, then Decker made the commitment. He slipped inside the warehouse and took refuge, hiding behind a stack of three-foot square boxes. Once again, surrounded by phantasmagoric nothingness: by violence lurking behind an eerie stillness. His inhalations were deep. He was sweating profusely, and salt bathed his eyes. He wiped them with the back of his gloves, still wet from rain. He peeked over the edge of the cardboard stack and peered through the Walther’s scope, but saw only aisle after aisle of cartons and boxes. Nowhere could he spy Donatti or the platform on which they had been squatting. With no specific landmarks, he was disoriented. He only knew that he was in the rear of the warehouse.

With nothing to go on, he figured he might as well go for the action and head toward the lit room in front. Hopefully, Donatti—if he did spot him—would look before he shot.

Provided he wasn’t after Decker.

Jonathan’s words: He could be setting you up.

Donatti had had ample opportunity to pop him, and had yet to exercise the option. But Chris was a pro and picked his scenery like a stage director choosing his set designs. The opportunity had never been better: a headfirst, out-of-town cop trying to rescue his brother-in-law, getting shot in the cross fire.

Again he scoped the place through the infrared lens, scanning the aisles for anything in motion.

Everything appeared inert.

He plotted a path, one that had lots of big cartons and crates to hide behind with plenty of escape routes. Of course, if he could hide behind walls of cardboard, so could a sniper. But maybe they were too busy guarding the door and watching their own asses to worry about an itinerant cop.

He inched out from his current position and gave a last-minute check to his surroundings. As quickly and quietly as his shoes would allow—he had to tiptoe because his sneakers squeaked—he started toward the other side of the warehouse.