The Protector

  In darkness pierced by flashlight beams, the woman became silent for a moment. When she finally spoke again, she sounded annoyed. "Yes, all our research says you're good at using words to manipulate situations. In fact, that's what I want from you. Talk. A lot of it."

  "About?"

  "Prescott."

  "How did you know we'd come here?"

  "Teach him not to change the subject, Edgar."

  Blinded by the flashlights, Cavanaugh couldn't see where the fist was directed. He expected another punch to his stomach and braced his muscles there, but this time the blow struck his face, knocking him to the floor. Stunned, briefly seeing more flashlight beams than were aimed at him, he spat blood. Again, anger helped neutralize his fear.

  "We thought Prescott was dead, but we didn't find his body on the mountain after the fire," Grace said.

  You punished me, but I still won, Cavanaugh thought. You're answering my question.

  "So we decided to keep tabs on our rivals," she said. "They were still trying to find him, and they were very interested in anybody else who was trying to find him. Yesterday, we saw them kidnap an FBI agent. Then four of them, including the dead man outside, set up surveillance on a nearby ridge, obviously expecting somebody important to arrive. We hoped it would be Prescott, although we couldn't figure why he'd come back. But then two of the men went away. When the final two started to leave this afternoon, we interrogated them and learned about you and your interest in this place, so we did our own watching for a while."

  "Why did you shoot Kline?"

  "Was that his name?" Grace shrugged. "If he knew anything, he wouldn't have been so eager to get his hands on you. I didn't need him, except to make a point about how serious we are."

  "But you need me, so you won't kill me," Cavanaugh said.

  "Meaning how can we make you afraid enough to talk? Why doesn't Edgar have a heart-to-heart with your friend here. Maybe that'll make you talk."

  The threat was like a hot needle piercing Cavanaugh's chest. Still dazed by the blow to his face, he tried to think quickly, to distract Grace from fixating on Jamie. "My team and I taught Prescott how to disappear. Then he killed everybody but me." What Cavanaugh said was only partly true. He deliberately didn't mention that a rocket from Grace's team had blown up Chad and Tracy. Maybe he could keep Grace from realizing that he hated her side almost as much as he hated Prescott. "I risked my life for that son of a bitch. He killed the people who'd pledged to protect him. My friends. Tried to kill me. ... I want him as much as you do."

  "Then tell us where to find him," Grace said.

  On the floor, Cavanaugh raised his left arm, trying to shield his eyes from the glare of the lights. More blood dripped from his mouth. "You think if I knew where to find him, I'd have come to his lab?"

  "You just told me you helped teach Prescott how to disappear!" Grace's voice boomed.

  "Everything but the final step: his new identity." Cavanaugh's swollen mouth made it difficult for him to talk. "We'd arranged for him to go to a forger who'd supply him with a new name and documents for it. Prescott got there ahead of me, took the documents, and killed the forger. There's no way to find out the name and background the forger created for him." "Where did Prescott intend to live?" "I have no idea. We hadn't decided that yet." "Edgar," Grace said.

  This time, it was a kick to Cavanaugh's side that made him groan. Trying to absorb the impact, he rolled, but not far—a corner blocked his way.

  As the reverberation of the impact ended, Cavanaugh heard I Jamie's nervous breathing. "We told him to pick a spot where he'd never been, where he'd be least expected to go, a place he'd never spoken to anybody about."

  "You're not making a very good case for yourself," Grace said. "Why should we let you live if there's no way you can help us?" "I understand him."

  "You understand him?" Grace mocked. "He worked for us for ten years, and nobody here understood him."

  "Except that he's paranoid," Cavanaugh said. "And he's arrogant."

  "You're not telling me anything I don't know. I think Edgar needs to have that heart-to-heart with your friend to get you to be more generous with your information."

  Cavanaugh heard Jamie stop breathing. "Grace, I'll tell you the most important thing you need to know about him," he said. "Quit calling me that! If you're trying to pretend you're delirious, it isn't going to—"

  "Prescott believes he's smarter than everybody else," Cavanaugh said. "So what?"

  "I'm betting he thinks he knows how to disappear better than I taught him. I'm betting he thinks he can break the rules and be clever enough to get away with it." The idea, which had suddenly occurred to Cavanaugh, began to seem more than just a stalling tactic.

  "Be specific."

  Cavanaugh squinted past the nearly blinding flashlights toward where Grace's voice came from the darkness on his left. "We asked Prescott if he had a place in mind where he wanted to start his new life. He told us no, which we said was good"—Cavanaugh wiped blood from his mouth—"because people who have a place in mind often make inadvertent comments about it." He took a painful breath. "Later, somebody might remember those comments and tell the wrong people." He shifted where he lay on the concrete floor, feeling its chill creeping into him. "I've been trying to remember if Prescott made any inadvertent slips like that."

  "And did he?" "He liked wine." "That's not a bulletin, either."

  "He liked fine cooking. He could analyze it the way a chef would." Thinking of Prescott's praise for Chad's beef Stroganoff, Cavanaugh felt a mounting fury about Chad's death, about how it wouldn't have happened if not for Grace's team and the fire Prescott had started. Hating Grace, he hid his emotions by concentrating on the pain Edgar had inflicted on him: his aching stomach muscles and his mangled lips. "He said the only exercise he enjoyed was golf."

  "So Prescott went to Napa Valley or the New York wine district or the Bordeaux region of France, where he eats gourmet meals when he's not playing golf—is that the news flash you're giving me?" Grace asked. "If you don't start telling me something useful, Edgar and your friend are going to start dancing. While he's at it, he'll step on your toes a little more."

  "Let me finish." Cavanaugh's swollen lips throbbed. "When I met him at the warehouse, he had some books and videotapes on a shelf. Not many. But he'd been in that hidey-hole for three weeks. It stands to reason that the few things he had with him were extremely important to him, enough to keep him amused for that length of time." Cavanaugh paused, hoping to sink the hook. "Or to satisfy his fantasies."

  "Fantasies?"

  "About the ideal life he was planning. About the dreamed-of place he was going to see with his brand-new identity." "What were the books and the videos?" "That's the problem. I've been trying to remember, but I can't think of the titles." Again, Cavanaugh was partly lying. He definitely remembered Prescott's fascination with the poet Robinson Jeffers. He was trying to give Grace enough information to retain her interest while he bought time, in the hopes that he could find a way to get Jamie and himself out of there. "He had a porno book. Another book about geology. I saw an odd mix of videos. A Clint Eastwood thriller. A teenage romance starring Troy Donahue."

  "Titles," Grace said. "I told you—I can't remember." "You will," Grace said.

  She snapped her fingers. Footsteps scraping, the group backed away. Gripping the wall to get support to stand, Cavanaugh felt Jamie help him to his feet. He shambled from the room and watched the group climb the concrete steps toward sunlight that hurt his eyes.

  At the top, Grace had a cell phone to her ear. "Somebody bring Dr. Rattigan ... I don't care what he's doing. Get him here now."

  The group disappeared into daylight.

  With a drone, the concrete door descended, blocking the sun. Three feet. Two feet. Cavanaugh cherished the final sliver of light. Then, with a hollow thump as the door closed, he and Jamie were enveloped by darkness.

  * * *

  4

  The gloom and the isolatio
n were so total that the air felt denser and smelled staler. He heard Jamie breathing next to him.

  "Who's Dr. Rattigan?" Her voice was unsteady. The complete lack of light caused the echo to seem louder.

  Cavanaugh's injuries, plus his fear-weakened muscles, made it hard for him to keep his balance in the darkness. "My guess is somebody with a satchelful of syringes and chemicals to help me remember."

  "How hard did he hit you?"

  "My smile isn't as winning as it used to be." The joke wasn't much, but Cavanaugh had to try to do something to lift Jamie's spirit. "What about you? Are—"

  "I need to ... I'm sorry, but I have to ..."

  Cavanaugh heard Jamie feel her way along a wall and into a room. An urgent tug on a buckle was followed by a zipper being pulled down, slacks being dropped, urine hissing on the floor.

  "Sorry," she said. "Sorry."

  "For what it's worth ..." If he hadn't been determined to rouse her spirits, he wouldn't have admitted that his own pants were wet. "When Edgar kicked me, my bladder let go."

  And that's something else he and Grace will pay for, Cavanaugh thought.

  Fabric made a brushing sound as Jamie readjusted her clothes. "I don't know if I ever told you. When I was a kid, some friends—if I can call them that—locked me in a closet. I don't like the dark."

  "I'm not crazy about it, either."

  "I have trouble in places that make me feel closed in."

  "Maybe I can make the space seem larger." The luminous dial on Cavanaugh's watch showed the rising motion of his hand as he remembered something in the upper pocket of his jacket.

  Scrape.

  A

  match flared. Jamie's surprised face appeared in the flickering light. "Where'd you get—"

  "From when we pretended to be smoking outside John's building."

  "One of the few benefits anyone ever got from lighting up," Jamie said.

  "Edgar's not half as good at searching people as he thinks he is. He also left us our belts."

  "What good are—"

  "The spike on the buckle can be a weapon."

  Cavanaugh felt heat as the match burned closer to his fingers. His trembling hand made the flame waver. Finally, he had to drop it.

  "Step next to me," he said. "Hold my jacket."

  The sound of cloth being torn echoed in the darkness.

  "What are you doing?" Jamie asked.

  "Ripping off my shirtsleeves."

  "Why would—"

  "To make torches." Cavanaugh tugged at the fabric, which was stronger than he'd expected. Finally, he had both sleeves off. His bare arms felt a chill that radiated from the concrete around him. Quickly, he put his coat back on.

  "My turn," Jamie said. She gave him her blazer. The finer material of her blouse made it easier for her and Cavanaugh to tear the sleeves off. She shoved them into a pocket.

  "We'll be able to see for a while," Jamie said, "but we still won't be able to get out of here."

  "Imagine you're Prescott." Cavanaugh removed his belt and shoved the spike on its buckle through the end of one of his torn-off sleeves. "Suspicious as he is, he wouldn't like feeling closed in any more than we do. That concrete door comes down and—"

  "The hydraulics could fail," Jamie said. "Everybody could be trapped and suffocate. Prescott definitely wouldn't like to think about running out of air."

  "Right." Cavanaugh struck another match and applied the flame to the end of his sleeve. Like many fabrics, it had been treated with a fire retardant. That wouldn't stop the cloth from catching fire, but it would prevent the fire from spreading quickly, which was what Cavanaugh needed.

  He set the sleeve on the floor and pulled it with his belt. That way, he wouldn't risk burning his hand. His buckle clattered along the concrete. Meanwhile, the shimmering light caused Jamie's face to lose a little of its tension.

  "A tunnel that goes to Prescott's mansion," she said.

  "Exactly."

  The buckle continued to clatter as they moved toward the steps leading up to the door. Next to the steps, on the right, the burning sleeve revealed a corridor. They followed the narrow passageway, only to be stopped by a door.

  The door was locked.

  Cavanaugh folded up his jacket collar and removed his lock-pick tools. He set the belt on the floor, tried to steady his hands, and went to work.

  "Can you see to do it?" Jamie asked.

  "Most of this is feel." Giving Jamie the lesson he'd promised, hoping to distract her, and distracting himself in the process, Cavanaugh explained what he was doing. Applying torque with the end of one pick, he inserted the second pick into the key slot. The lock was solid and had six pins, each of which he nudged.

  In fifteen seconds, despite his trembling fingers, Cavanaugh had disabled the lock.

  But when he pulled the door open, the dwindling flames revealed a solid plug of fallen stones and scorched timbers, a sight that made Jamie moan.

  "It'll take hours to clean out this much debris, assuming we can do it at all," Cavanaugh said.

  The flame weakened.

  "Not to mention, the noise we'd make would attract attention on the surface. We'd have a dozen submachine guns pointed at us if we managed to crawl out."

  The flame died.

  "What are we going to do?" Jamie asked.

  Without an answer, Cavanaugh attached another torn sleeve to the buckle and lit it. Hurrying, he led the way back along the tunnel. "What did Grace say about all this? What did she mention they took out of here?"

  "The air-conditioning and the heating systems. Maybe we can use the ductwork," Jamie said quickly. "Maybe there's a ventilation shaft that leads to the surface."

  They reached the main corridor. At the bottom of the stairs leading up to the concrete door, Cavanaugh glanced toward the ceiling, finding a two-foot-square gap where a ventilation grille had been removed.

  Crouching, he interlaced his hands and made them into a stirrup. When Jamie stepped onto them, he straightened, lifting her.

  She was tall enough that she had no trouble reaching the gap in the ceiling. She eased her head up through it.

  "See anything?" Cavanaugh asked.

  "I can't fit through it, so I guarantee you can't. Damn it, in the movies, the air-conditioning ducts are always big enough for Andre the Giant."

  As Cavanaugh lowered her, the burning sleeve began to dim. Smoke rose. "What else did Grace say? What else did they take out of here?"

  "The plumbing fixtures. The lights. The—"

  "We know there's electricity." Cavanaugh glanced at the wires protruding from small gaps in the walls. "Otherwise, the system that raises the concrete slab wouldn't work."

  "What switch would have activated the door from the inside?" Jamie headed toward wires in a gap to the right of the steps. Plastic caps covered the ends of the wires.

  Cavanaugh pulled the caps off and studied the bare tips of the wires. "The switch that was here was the closest to the steps. If I press these wires together, will they make a circuit and cause the door to open?"

  In the dimming light, Jamie looked hopeful. Then the spirit in her eyes faded. "There'll be guards outside. They'll see and hear the door move."

  "Maybe not. If I only tap these wires together, there'll be sound and movement just for an instant. Maybe not long enough for anybody to notice. At least we'll know if these wires control the door."

  "But what good will that do? We'll still be trapped in here." "Until later," Cavanaugh said. "Until we think the timing's better. Then we can open the door all the way."

  "Is that before or after Dr. Rattigan fills you full of chemicals to refresh your memory?"

  Cavanaugh didn't know what to answer. We've got to try something, he thought.

  As he was about to tap the wires together, the door moved seemingly on its own, the hydraulic system droning, the door rising.

  Sunlight revealed the silhouettes of Grace, Edgar, and half a dozen armed men.

  Cavanaugh stepped on the b
urning sleeve to extinguish it, then grabbed his belt and pulled Jamie into the shadows of a room. He didn't know what he hoped to accomplish, but anything was better than standing in the open. He removed the matchbook from his pocket and tore off several of the matches, along with a quarter inch of the abrasive paper, putting them in a different pocket. Then he crushed the matchbook inside his fist.

  Heavy footsteps indicated that the armed men came down the steps first.

  Grace and Edgar followed. "Show yourselves," Grace said. "If you make us search for you, we'll throw flash-bangs into each room."

  The threat of ruptured eardrums was enough to persuade Cavanaugh to emerge into the corridor, Jamie coming with him.

  "I smell smoke." Grace glanced toward the ashy remnants of the burned sleeve on the floor.

  "For light," Cavanaugh said.

  "How'd you set fire to the clothing?"

  "Matches."

  Grace gave Edgar a look of disgust.

  There was enough light spilling through the entrance for Cavanaugh to see that the gunmen didn't have the distinctive bulky look that came from wearing Kevlar vests under their shirts. They wore utility belts with two-way radios, Beretta pistols, extra ammunition, and flash-bang canisters.

  Cavanaugh shifted his gaze toward Edgar's baggy pants pockets. Something heavy weighed down the right side, presumably one of the pistols that Edgar had taken. The clip on the Emerson knife was secured to the outside of Edgar's other pocket.

  "Toss the matches over," Grace said.

  Cavanaugh obeyed.

  "What did you do, run over them with a car?" Looking disgusted, Grace picked them up, their mutilated appearance making the missing quarter inch of abrasive paper seem normal. "I've got a computer in the car and access to the Internet." Grace gestured with several computer printouts. "Before the good doctor gets here, maybe you'd like to refresh your memory the easy way. Troy Donahue." The sunlight behind Grace allowed her to read from one of the pages. "Tall, blond, blue-eyed teenage heartthrob known for his wooden acting. Peak of popularity—late fifties, early sixties. Major hits: A Summer Place. Susan Slade. Par-rish. Rome Adventure. Palm Springs Weekend.' Do any of those sound familiar?"