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

legs, and glanced down at his watch. His daughters were probably on their way to school by now. Dara would be driving them, along the open and defenseless roadways of the city. And, at home, the blankets and sheets would still be warm from their small bodies, would still retain the memory of dreams.
    Seiden looked over at Captain Rubenstein who hovered expectantly by the hallway. Seiden knew only too well what this trademark torture meant. The thin, rather nondescript Arab in custody was the infamous El Aqrab, one of Israel’s most wanted terrorists, responsible for dozens of bombings, thousands of innocent deaths, affiliated with both Hamas and Hezbollah, leader of the Brotherhood of the Crimson Scimitar, with shadowy ties all across the Middle East and Europe, and beyond.
    “He didn’t even try to run,” said Captain Rubenstein. “He was waiting when my men arrived, in the center of the room, just waiting like that, on his knees. It doesn’t make sense, sir. Why throw her body from the balcony, alert the world? It’s like he wanted to be caught. As if he’s given up.”
    Seiden glanced once more at the two boys in the chairs, their anguished immolated faces, the script tattooed across their flesh. “No, Captain. I’m afraid he’s only just begun.”

Chapter 3
    Friday, January 28 – 1:06 AM
    La Palma , The Canary Islands
     
    Giles Pickings pulled at the cord above him and turned on the naked light bulb overhead. Then, with a sigh, he shuffled down the narrow wooden staircase and began to rummage around in his storm cellar. After a few minutes, he found the box that he was looking for. He opened it and there it was. He pulled out the wine-colored blanket, draped it across one arm, and patted it lovingly. It had belonged to his wife, Layla. The blanket had covered up a thousand memories along the years, and they all came spilling out now as he pushed the material to his face. He could still smell her. Pickings spun about and rushed back up the stairs.
    The cellar door opened up onto the side of the house overlooking the Atlantic. It was a cool and windy night on the island of La Palma. The stars glared down through inky clouds, behind the sloping shoulders of the Cumbre Vieja ridge just to the south, illuminated by a crescent moon. No wonder astronomers from all over the globe had set up domed observatories on the top of the Caldera de Taburiente National Parque, 2,400 meters above sea level. Pickings staggered around the house, buffeted by the wind that swept across the Canary Islands chain, and made his way inside.
    At the center of the living room stood a Sound Leisure Beatles jukebox, half buried in a crate. Pickings draped the blanket over the veneered marine ply cabinet, the polycarbonate tube pillers, the plastic periscopes, the cartoon figurines – John, Paul, and George, and Ringo, inside their Yellow Submarine. He had purchased the jukebox in Leeds, back in the ‘70s. Surely, I have time for just one more, he thought. He plugged it in, turned on the jukebox, and made a selection. Help began to play. Listening to the music for the last time, Pickings was sad to see it go. But hard times had driven him to sell off most of his belongings. He hadn’t had a choice. The Sound Leisure had fetched almost five thousand pounds. Besides, he was better off without it. The jukebox was a memory machine.
    Pickings was a retired Housemaster from Wyckham College, an English boarding school in Winchester, Hampshire, England. He was fifty-six years old, with a heart-shaped face, thin gray hair and gold wire-rimmed glasses that constantly descended down his pudgy nose. An expert in Papal history, he’d been married to Layla Pickings for almost thirty years, before she had disappeared one day, never to return. Layla was Lebanese; they’d met years before in Beirut, while he was doing research on a book about the Crusades. He used to travel quite a lot in those days, going from school to school across Europe to teach,