Part 46 (1/2)
He hesitated.
”What are you waiting for?” Beth asked.
Decker stared at his right hand where it was about to turn the key. Sweat beaded his brow. ”Now is when we find out whether I'm right or wrong that Renata didn't rig this car with explosives.”
”Well, if you're wrong, we'll never know,” Beth said. ”To h.e.l.l with it. We were talking about faith. Do it. Turn the key.”
Decker actually smiled as he obeyed. Waiting for the explosion that would blow the car apart, he heard the roar of the engine. ”Yes!” He backed out of the parking s.p.a.ce and drove as quickly as safety allowed past travelers putting luggage into their cars, any of whom might be his enemy. A half a minute later, he was leaving the garage, stopping at one of the collection booths, paying the attendant, and joining the stream of cars speeding from the airport. Headlights glared.
His heart pounded furiously as he rounded a curve and pointed toward the lights gleaming in almost every window of the fourteen-story Best Western hotel. ”Right now, there's a lot of activity in one of those rooms. The needle on their homing-device monitor is telling them this car is in motion.” He wanted to increase speed but stopped the impulse when he saw the roof lights of a police car in front of him.
”I'm so nervous, I can't stop my knees from shaking,” Beth said.
”Concentrate on controlling your fear.”
”I can't.”
”You have to.”
Ahead, the police car turned a corner.
Decker lifted the hatch on the storage compartment that separated the two front seats. He took Esperanza's service pistol from where Esperanza had left it in the car when they had flown to New York. ”They'll be out of their room now, hurrying toward the hotel's parking lot.”
”How do you stop from being afraid?”
”I don't.”
”But you just said-”
”To control it, not stop it. Fear's a survival mechanism. It gives you strength. It makes you alert. It can save your life, but only if you keep it under control. If it controls you, it'll get you killed.”
Beth studied him hard. ”Obviously I've got a lot to learn about you.”
”The same here. It's like everything that happened with us before the attack on my house last Friday night was our honeymoon. Now the marriage has begun.” Decker sped onto the interstate, merging with a chaos of headlights. ”They've had time to reach the hotel's parking lot. They're getting in their vehicles.”
”Honeymoon? Marriage? ... Was what you just said a proposal?”
”... Would that be such a bad idea?”
”I'd always disappoint you. I could never be the ideal woman you risked your life for.”
”That makes us even. I'm definitely not the ideal man.”
”You're giving a good imitation of that hero I told you I dreamed about as a little girl.”
”Heroes are fools. Heroes get themselves killed.” Decker increased speed to keep pace with traffic, which was doing sixty-five in a fifty-five-mile-an-hour zone. ”Renata and her friends will be rus.h.i.+ng toward the interstate now. The homing-device monitor will tell them which direction I've taken. I have to keep ahead of them. I can't let them pull abreast of me and force me off a deserted section of the highway.”
”Do you mind talking?”
”Now?”
”Will it distract you? If it doesn't, talking would help me not to be so afraid.”
”In that case, talk.”
”What's your worst fault?”
”Excuse me?”
”You were courting me all summer, showing me your best side. What's your worst?”
”You tell me yours.” Decker squinted toward the confusion of headlights in his rearview mirror, watching for any vehicle that approached more rapidly than the others.
”I asked first.”
”You're serious?”
”Very.”
As the speed limit changed to sixty-five, Decker reluctantly began.
15.
He told her that his father had been a career officer in the military and that the family had lived on bases all over the United States, moving frequently. ”I grew up learning not to get attached to people or places.” He told her that his father had not been demonstrative with affection and in fact had seemed to be embarra.s.sed about showing any emotion, whether it was anger, sadness, or joy. ”I learned to hide what I felt.” He told her that when he entered the military, a logical choice for the son of a career officer, the special-operations training he received gave him further reinforcement in controlling his emotions.
”I had an instructor who took a liking to me and spent time talking with me on our off-hours. We used to get into philosophical discussions, a lot of which had to do with how to survive inhuman situations and yet not become inhuman. How to react to killing someone, for example. Or how to try to handle seeing a buddy get killed. He showed me something in a book about the mind and emotions that I've never forgotten.”
Decker kept glancing apprehensively toward the headlights in his rearview mirror. Traffic was becoming spa.r.s.e. Nonetheless, he stayed in the pa.s.sing lane, not wanting to be impeded by the occasional cars on his right.
”What was it he showed you?” Beth asked.
”'When we make fateful decisions, fate will inevitably occur. We all have emotions. Emotions themselves don't compromise us. But our thoughts about our emotions will compromise us if those thoughts aren't disciplined. Training controls our thoughts. Thoughts control our emotions.' ”
”It sounds like he was trying to put so many buffers over your emotions that you barely felt them.”
”Filters. The idea was to interpret my emotions so that they were always in my best interest. For instance”-Decker tasted something bitter-”Sat.u.r.day night two friends of mine were killed.”
”Helping you try to find me?” Beth looked sickened. ”My grief for them threatened to overwhelm me, but I told myself I didn't have time. I had to postpone my grief until I could mourn for them properly. I couldn't mourn for them in the future if I didn't concentrate right then on staying alive. I still haven't found time to mourn for them.”
Beth repeated a statement from the quote he had given her. ” 'Thoughts control our emotions.' ”