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McKittrick said.
    “Your son keeps using a phrase I’d say you’re in—extreme denial.”
    Decker slowed, easing past the police cars on the narrow street. As tires splashed through puddles, the policemen looked toward the Fiat, then resumed talking to the people in the vestibule.
    “And you can’t be certain that those policemen have anything to do with Brian,” McKittrick said.
    “You know as well as I do—we can’t accept coincidence. If I were Brian, this is the logical place that I’d go first. To try to get even with the woman who betrayed him. There’s one way to find out. You want me to stop so you can go back and talk to the police?”
    “Lord no. Keep driving. Because I’m an American, they’d want to know why I was interested. They’d ask so many questions, I’d be forced to show my credentials.”
    “Right. And if Brian can be linked to whatever happened at that apartment building, you’d be linked to him and to what happened at the Tiber Club, assuming the terrorists sent the police evidence about his involvement in the explosion. Wouldn’t that be a pretty mess?”
    “Do you suppose Brian found the woman?” McKittrick’s voice deepened with concern.
    “I doubt it. There wasn’t an ambulance.” Decker sped onto another street.
    “You’re worried that he was furious enough to have killed her?”
    “No. What worries me is the reverse.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Her killing him” Decker said. “Your son’s out of his depth. What’s worse, he isn’t humble enough to know it. These people are expert killers. They don’t just do their work well. They love it. It gave them a kick to toy with Brian, but if they ever thought he was a serious threat, he’d be dead in an instant. There might not be enough of him left to send home for a funeral.”
    McKittrick sat tensely straighten “How can we stop him?” Decker stared toward the rain past the flapping windshield wipers. “Your son likes to leave documents around his apartment—a list of his contacts and their addresses, for example.”
    “Dear God, are you telling me his tradecraft is that faulty?”
    “I get the feeling you haven’t been listening to me. Twenty-three people are dead, forty-three injured. That’s how faulty his tradecraft is.”
    “The list,” McKittrick said, agitated. “Why did you mention the list?”
    “Before I burned it, I memorized it,” Decker said. “Renata’s name and address were at the top. It’s logical for him to have gone there first. I think it’s also logical that he’ll go to every other address until he finds her.”
    “But if they’re really the terrorists, they won’t be at those addresses.”
    “Exactly.” Decker swerved around another corner. “They’re professionals. They wouldn’t have given Brian their real addresses. Renata probably used that apartment back there as an accommodation, part of the scam. But it doesn’t look like Brian figured that out. He’s too furious. He wants to get even. The people he terrorizes at those addresses won’t have the vaguest idea what’s going on. Maybe Renata counted on him to do this. Maybe it’s her final joke.”
    McKittrick’s tone was urgent. “Where’s the closest address on the list?”    ’
    “Across the river. But I don’t see any point in going there. He’s got too big a head start.” Decker increased speed, his tires hissing on the wet pavement. “He might be at the third or fourth address by now. I’m going to skip to the farthest, then the second-farthest, go at them in reverse order and hope our paths cross.”
    14
    The rain increased. The only thing in our favor, Decker thought, is that it’s the middle of the night. There aren’t any traffic jams to slow us down.
    All the same, he had to concentrate to drive swiftly and yet safely on the slick pavement. His troubled sleep the previous night had not been sufficient to overcome his jet lag. Now his sense of sleep deprivation intensified, his