THE WAVE: A John Decker Thriller Read Free Page A

him with a warrant for his assault on Aaron Turner. McNally laughed. The police told him to put the shotgun down and, without a fuss, McNally complied. Then, as they drew closer to the house, a shot rang out from the window of the bedroom on the second floor. Sergeant Crowley went down, a bullet through his forehead. He was dead before he even hit the ground.
    The second policeman, Officer Alvin Cox, retreated in a shower of bullets and barely made it back behind his car. He immediately put in a call for reinforcements. Within twenty minutes, another New Liberty police car, two state police cruisers, three local Eldridge and four Bettendorf police cars – including the Bettendorf Chief of Police, Paul “Popeye” Landry, and Sergeant Pat Higgins – had converged onto the scene. Two hours later, an FBI SWAT team had completely surrounded the farmhouse.
    After three hours of fruitless negotiations, during which the police had begged McNally to send his children out from the farmhouse, they intercepted a call from McNally to a man named Jordan Fletcher, the Grand Master of the White Apocalypse, based in a small town twenty miles southwest of Sioux City. Fletcher had immediately reprimanded McNally for calling him, especially on a landline. He told him to call back on his cell phone and to use “the book.” Then he hung up. The head of the FBI SWAT team, Don Morgan, had immediately called his office in Chicago and requested a device to pick up cell phone transmissions and a cryptanalyst. Within two hours, at approximately 4:20 PM, as the sun was beginning to set, John Decker Jr. left I-80 and drove up Rural Route 30 toward the McNally farm in New Liberty.
     
     
    It was a strange kind of homecoming for Decker. The son of a local policeman, Decker had joined the Bettendorf Police Force himself soon after college in Chicago. But after only two years on the force, he applied to join the FBI and was accepted by the Academy in Quantico, Virginia. Following sixteen weeks of intensive training, and a stint with the Racketeering Records Analysis Unit in Washington, D.C., he had been transferred to the Bureau’s office in Chicago where he worked within the Cryptanalysis Subunit, mostly on white collar crimes involving credit card fraud, money laundering, illegal gambling and a few drug cases. His superiors felt he didn’t have the qualities required for a Special Agent. And besides, his abilities seemed better suited to a desk job.
    As Decker approached the farmhouse, driving past the TV crews and news reporters crowded around the outer gate, Chief Landry ambled slowly down the muddy, snow-flecked road to greet him. Decker got out and they shook hands.
    Just shy of six feet tall, a trifle thin but wiry, Decker had thick coal black hair, pale gray eyes dotted with blue and green specks, and the gentle features of a poet. Only a long white scar, barely visible below the hairline and sweeping along one eye, and a slight lopsidedness to his face, marred his demeanor. He had just turned thirty last December.
    “It’s good to see you again, John Junior,” Landry said. “Happy new year.”
    “Happy new year, Popeye,” he responded. “Sorry to hear about Crowley. He was a good cop.” Popeye simply nodded. A minute later, Decker was surrounded by Alvin Cox, a dozen local New Liberty, Bettendorf, Davenport and Eldridge policemen, plus a handful of troopers from the Iowa State Patrol. Despite the somber mood, they joked with him about returning to the Quad Cities. “Look what the cat dragged in,” said Sgt. Higgins. “Is this all the Bureau could spare?” Even two local state troopers, Dick and Harry Sloane – identical twins, like mirror images in their brown and light tan uniforms – swung by to say hello. It was clear they remembered Decker with fondness. Higgins handed him a steaming cup of coffee. Then Special Agent Don Morgan of the SWAT team briefed him on the situation. Within minutes, Decker was back in the surveillance