Free THE WAVE: A John Decker Thriller by J.G. Sandom Page B

the lobby. The agent threw himself against the elevator doors but he was just too late. The doors slammed shut. Bartolo smashed his hand against the console. He spun about. After what seemed like an eternity, another elevator descended, and Bartolo got inside. The elevator doors closed soundlessly behind him, with excruciating slowness, just as Decker dashed in from the street.
    Decker sprinted over to the elevators. Both were occupied, of course, ascending. He turned, searching frantically for the stairwell. There it was. In the corner. He saw the illuminated Exit sign, a livid red. He ran across the foyer, barged through the door, and started up the steps.
     
    * * *
     
    The elevator paused at the seventh floor and Bartolo jumped out. He checked the apartment first, then pounded up the stairs. He could hear foreign voices in the stairwell leading to the roof.
    “Bartolo?” Decker shouted from below.
    “The roof,” Bartolo shouted back. He had already reached the top floor of the building. The door leading out onto the roof was swinging closed. Bartolo drew his gun. He stepped up to the door, kicked it open, and threw himself onto the ground outside, rolling as he fell.
    The suspects were fleeing across the roof. He could see them running, rushing through the pouring rain. Bartolo spat, got to his feet and gave chase.
    They made their way across the glistening rooftops in a line, leaping from one apartment building to the next, scrambling over chimneys and lawn furniture and clotheslines and giant rolls of tarpaper in the rain. Bartolo closed on Mecca, the trailing suspect. All of a sudden, the Arab leapt across a chasm between two buildings, his arms waving in the air above him as if he were holding a trapeze. He landed roughly on the next rooftop and rolled. Bartolo followed without hesitation. He ran and jumped, but slipped at the last moment on the glistening parapet. He fell just short. The lip of the next building caught him on the chest with a loud thump , and he felt the wind knocked out of him. Bartolo kicked and struggled but to no avail; his body slid across the parapet and he found himself dangling from the roof, his legs waving in the empty air, his muscles straining. “Decker,” he cried. “Decker, help me. Help me!”
     
    * * *
     
    Decker appeared behind him on the other roof. “Hold on, Tony,” he shouted. “Don’t move.”
    There was a shot and Decker ducked. Mecca was firing at him. He had rolled behind a chimney and was taking potshots at him from the other roof.
    Decker shielded himself behind a set of chimney pots. “Hold on, I’m coming, Tony,” he shouted. “Just hold on.”
    Decker couldn’t see Bartolo any more; he was hidden by the chimneys. Then Decker noticed Mecca on the other roof. The Arab was approaching his partner slowly through the rain.
    Decker unholstered his gun – a double-action Beretta 92FS with a matte-black Bruniton finish. He aimed it at the Arab who continued to draw nearer and nearer, seemingly mindless of his obvious exposure. At first, Decker had the unreasonable feeling that he was going to pull the struggling agent to his feet. “Don’t move,” Decker shouted frantically. “Freeze. I said freeze!” But Mecca just ignored him. He leaned down over the parapet, as if to offer some assistance, eyeing Decker the whole time, reached out for Bartolo with his hand, and stabbed him in the back.
    Decker fired.
    The shot struck Mecca’s knife, blasting it from his grasp and up into the air. It spiraled out of sight. Mecca ducked and rolled away behind a low brick wall.
    Decker holstered his gun. He zigzagged madly across the roof, set his foot, and leapt across the wide divide. A bullet whizzed above him. He sailed and sailed and sailed, and finally hit the other roof. He pulled out his Beretta as he rolled. He aimed, but Mecca had already disappeared.
    The shooting had stopped.
    Then Decker saw him – tearing across the roof two buildings down, immediately