THE WAVE: A John Decker Thriller Read Online Free PDF Page A

his path. He flashed his identity card. The policeman closest to him gave it a cursory glance, then suddenly stepped back, dropped his cigarette to the ground, and issued a sharp salute.
    Seiden saluted back. “Is Captain Rubenstein inside?”
    “Apartment 2 B. Yes, sir.”
    Seiden stared at the policeman with a level gaze. Then he glanced down at the cigarette still burning at his feet. “As you were.”
    Seiden mounted the steps. As soon as he had disappeared into the lobby, the young lieutenant turned to his fellow cops and mouthed the word, “Mossad.”
    Seiden took the stairs instead of the elevator. He didn’t like elevators. He’d always considered them a waste of electricity. Seiden couldn’t understand why people invariably took the elevator even when they were only going up one flight or two. And then they paid outrageous sums to join a health club or a gym. It made no sense. He was a man who disliked tall buildings, not from vertigo or fear of fire. He simply preferred things in human dimensions.
    Captain Rubenstein was waiting outside apartment 2 B. The lieutenant downstairs must have alerted him to his arrival, Seiden thought, because he stood there poised and ready. Seiden shook the Captain’s hand. Rubenstein looked pale and ill at ease. His fingers were moist. Seiden had never seen him so distraught.
    “Acting Chief Seiden,” the Captain said, and Seiden noticed how Rubenstein found solace in the salutation. Titles were settling things. They showed you where you stood. They rooted you.
    “I’m sorry I had to bother you at this hour . . . ”
    Seiden waved a hand and the Captain opened the door to the apartment. They were immediately assaulted by the acrid smell of smoke. Rubenstein moved ahead of him to lead the way.
    Policemen and members of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) crowded the living room. Near the sliding glass door that opened onto the balcony, Seiden spotted a dead, middle-aged bald man tied to a chair with his back to him. Beside him, kneeling on the floor, his hands handcuffed behind him, was a skinny Arab. He was dressed in traditional Arab garb, with a grey aba , and the red and white keffiyeh headdress of the Palestinian. Two soldiers stood above the suspect, their automatic weapons trained on the back of his head.
    Two young boys, no more than ten or eleven, were lashed to another pair of chairs, perpendicular to the dead man by the windows. Seiden could see strange cuts, in the shape of Arabic script, slashed into their skin. They both appeared to be naked. It was difficult to tell. Their bodies were ribbed with glassy burn marks, gunpowder black.
    Seiden turned toward Rubenstein and said, “Please have the room cleared, Captain.” Then he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of off-white latex gloves.
    Rubenstein issued the order, and the soldiers and policemen filed out one by one without a word. Seiden walked over to where the Arab was kneeling on the floor. The suspect didn’t look at him. He didn’t even look up. He simply knelt there, facing the floor, as if in prayer. Seiden slipped on the latex gloves.
    All of the victims were lined up in a row, with the middle-aged man facing the sea, and the children at right angles to him. A bloody carpet lay on the floor by the glass door leading to the balcony. Seiden approached the bodies of the boys. He touched the forehead of the nearest victim, tilting the head back. It lolled over to the side. No rigor mortis, he thought. He peered into the open mouth. The face was practically warm. He leaned over, taking a closer look at the wounds on the boy’s chest and stomach: carved Arabic script; and some kind of foliation, burned into the flesh. It appeared as if each of the victims had been tortured and then set ablaze with some kind of combustible material. Probably magnesium ribbon, Seiden thought, remembering a high school science class from years before, when he had set a magnesium strip on fire, acetylene