The Naked Edge Read online

  DAVID MORRELL

  THE

  NAKED EDGE

  Copyright © 2010 by David Morrell

  All rights reserved.

  To Dennis Martin, a true warrior who taught me about the fighting techniques of legendary W.E. Fairbairn—

  and to Marcus Wynne, who is not only an authentic runner-and-gunner but also a fine thriller novelist

  CONTENTS

  PART ONE: TELLTALES

  PART TWO: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO FAIRBAIRN

  PART THREE: “DO YOU LIKE TO PLAY VIDEO GAMES, RAOUL?”

  PART FOUR: THE RULE OF FIVE MISSIONS

  PART FIVE: THE IRON MISTRESS

  PART SIX: THE KNIVES OF OLD SAN FRANCISCO

  PART SEVEN: THE MOST EXPENSIVE KNIFE IN THE WORLD

  PART EIGHT: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE BLADE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  THE KNIVES OF THE NAKED EDGE

  PHOTOGRAPHS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  There's a line between living and dying, between being a survivor and being a victim. Like a sharp blade separating predators and prey, that line is called the naked edge.

  PART ONE:

  TELLTALES

  1

  The sniper had a partner. That was a given. To do the job properly, which meant not only making the hit but also escaping, the shooter needed eyes in the back of his head. All the time he sighted through the scope on his Remington .308 rifle, which he loved more than anything else in the world, he needed the freedom to concentrate only on the job at hand, an area of a few inches 700 yards away, and that meant he needed a spotter to concentrate on the objects around him: whether a threat was approaching from the side, whether a cloud was about to cast a shadow, whether something or someone was about to obscure the target. He needed a partner he could depend on, who shared his instincts, who knew what he was thinking. A lot of marriages weren't as close.

  They hiked in from the neighboring valley, taking the most remote route through the roughest terrain so they wouldn't be noticed. Aerial photographs aligned with topographical maps showed the slopes that had the best cover while still providing a line of fire toward the target. Moving cautiously along the tree-capped ridges, they rejected two vantage points, chose the third, sank behind boulders, opened their backpacks, and assembled their equipment.

  2

  Telltales. In Cavanaugh's former line of work, noticing them had kept him alive. Runners-and-gunners tended to have identifying characteristics: baseball caps covering their military-style short hair, for example. The cropped hair wasn't a macho fetish. Rather, it was a hygienic necessity because they couldn't predict where they'd be assigned, possibly a desert, possibly a swamp. Contrary to the famous speech in Lawrence of Arabia about how clean the desert is, sand could be almost as insect-infested as a swamp, making long hair a likely nest.

  Similarly, runners-and-gunners never wore loafers but instead had thick-soled, lace-up shoes that could serve as weapons and wouldn't fall off in a fight. They liked fanny packs and loose-fitting, casual clothes that gave them numerous places to hide weapons. They needed a thick belt to support the weight of a hidden pistol and ammunition magazines. They had an inconspicuous black metal clip over the outside of a pants pocket. The clip was attached to a folding knife that could be easily drawn and flicked open with the press of a thumb against a stud on the back of the blade. They were fond of “safari” vests, the kind with numerous pockets, ideal for hiding weapons. For the same reason, they liked pants that had extra pockets at the outside of the knees.

  But attention to detail was itself a telltale. Most people stumbled through life in a state of profound inattention that noted handgun expert Jeff Cooper called Condition White. In contrast, Cavanaugh maintained a state of persistent alertness known as Condition Yellow. It was second nature to him. Whenever he left or entered a new space (a vehicle or a building, for instance), he always paused and scanned his new environment, assessing whether it presented threats. He was a connoisseur of mismatched details. If something didn't fit an expected pattern, internal alarms sounded. But it takes one to know one, and in a society of minimal consciousness, someone with Condition Yellow attention is so uncommon that he or she becomes a mismatched detail.

  In the present case, the two men spotted Cavanaugh about the same time he spotted them. This was at an isolated gas station/convenience store twenty miles from Cavanaugh's ranch. The place had a log-cabin style that was popular in Wyoming's Jackson Hole valley. As he'd driven north from doing errands in Jackson (the names of the town and the valley were often confused), he'd noticed that the fuel gauge on his Taurus was below halfway. In the remote area where he lived, he never allowed it to get any lower, so he steered from Route 89 and headed along the sagebrush-flanked road toward the pumps. It took him only a moment to notice the two men watching him.

  They stood across from him, in front of the convenience store. They were in their late twenties, not tall, not short, not thin, not heavy. Both wore baseball caps. They had hiking boots, camping pants, sturdy belts, safari vests, fanny packs, and knife clips overlapping their pants pockets. In glorious aspen-yellow October, in the camping paradise of Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park, none of those potentially suspicious details was unusual. No mismatch. Except for the alertness in their eyes.

  Strong-looking without being conspicuously muscled, the two men gave Cavanaugh a thorough once-over: his cowboy boots, his jeans, thick belt, and unbuttoned shirt hanging loose over a blue T-shirt. They checked to see if he had the contour of a knife in a pants pocket (he didn't, but he did have a sheathed fixed-blade under his shirt on his left side, next to a spare ammunition magazine). On his right side, also concealed by his shirt, was his SIG Sauer 229 pistol, chosen because that nine millimeter's compact design made it an effective concealed-carry weapon.

  Cavanaugh avoided eye contact when he walked past the men and entered the convenience store. He paid for the gas and returned to the pump. Every motion became a study in casualness. He put the nozzle into his car's fuel tank. He squeezed the lever and pretended to enjoy the autumn sun's warmth. He glanced behind him toward the breathtakingly close Tetons, the towering peaks of which would soon be covered with snow. In the old days, the tallest of the cone-shaped mountains made winter-bound, female-starved trappers think of a woman's breasts, hence the range's name, which derived from the French word for teets. After an appropriate time admiring the mountains, Cavanaugh glanced over toward the convenience store.

  Now the two men stood next to a dark van. The side door was open. One of them leaned in, rearranging camping equipment. The other man looked over at Cavanaugh and then away.

  Could be off-duty cops on vacation, Cavanaugh thought.

  Then he saw another set of Condition Yellow eyes, this time from a young man (late 20s, camping shoes, loose pants, thick belt, safari vest, knife clip, fanny pack, baseball cap) watching from next to a dark Ford Explorer. Not to be obvious, the man broke eye contact and walked over to a trashcan, depositing the wrapper from a candy bar. To the left, a similar-looking man glanced away from Cavanaugh, opened a cooler in the back of his SUV, took out a soft drink, opened it, sipped, and glanced again toward Cavanaugh.

  Without being obvious, Cavanaugh noticed six other attentive men walking from cabins opposite the convenience store.

  Or maybe this is a rendezvous area for a team of protectors, he wondered. Jackson Hole attracted an unusual amount of celebrities, financiers, and politicians. A former vice president of the United States had a home in the valley. This could be a security team checking the route along which a powerful client would be traveling.

  Or maybe these guys are what a security team would be watching for.

  None of my business. It hasn't been for five months.


  As a few cars came and went, Cavanaugh finished putting fuel in the tank. Driving back to Route 89, continuing north through the sagebrush-dotted valley, ignoring the Snake River on his left, he glanced toward his rear-view mirror.

  No one followed.

  3

  Even in Wyoming where SUVs and pickup trucks were king, Cavanaugh's Taurus was so commonplace that it didn't stand out. The ubiquitous model was a habit from his former life. On protective assignments, a Taurus tended to be invisible, especially if the client was extremely wealthy, with adversaries who couldn't imagine their target in anything except a luxury automobile. Plus, unlike an SUV, the Taurus wouldn't roll if Cavanaugh needed to perform a 180-degree turn or any other emergency tactic.

  His version of the vehicle, which he had driven when he'd worked for Global Protective Services, was slightly longer than the standard design and had the powerful engine that the Ford Taurus racing team used. Its windows were bullet-resistant. Concealed along its interior were dense ceramic plates that protected against high-velocity rifles. In the unlikely event that a bullet passed through the fuel tank's armor, the container had a rubber liner that sealed bullet holes, preventing fuel from leaking. To accommodate the extra weight, the suspension was reinforced, which allowed the vehicle to use Wyoming's rough back roads. Its tires were reinforced also, and as a further precaution, Cavanaugh borrowed an idea from the Secret Service, arranging for the center of each rim to have a strong, plastic disc, a kind of tire within a tire, upon which the vehicle could ride if the outside tire became non-functional. There were additional modifications, such as high-intensity fog lamps in the rear that could be used to blind pursuing drivers.

  He reached an intersection called Moran Junction. A turn to the west would have taken him north toward Yellowstone National Park. Instead, he headed east past grassy fields on which elk grazed, eventually coming to isolated Buffalo Valley Road. After several curves, he disappeared among lodgepole pines within which a security camera watched. A sturdy metal gate opened when he pressed a security code on a remote control.

  “Pizza Hut,” he said into a walkie-talkie.

  After a moment, a female voice responded, “Plenty of pepperoni?”

  “All they had was ham.”

  “It's not a pizza if it doesn't have pepperoni.”

  The all-clear exchange having been completed, Cavanaugh drove through, pressed the remote control, and closed the gate. Past another security camera in the trees, he emerged into a grassy canyon flanked by wooded bluffs, his rearview mirror showing the magnificent Teton Mountains in the distance behind him.

  4

  The spotter heard the Taurus before he saw it. A sentry had radioed him that it was coming. He thought he was prepared emotionally. Even so, his pulse increased until he felt pressure in his veins. Not because of what would soon happen. Instead, because of what had happened. As he and the sniper sank lower on the ridge, he had a sudden painful memory of two boys wading in a stream filled with goldfish. Another memory, equally painful, followed: an old man pounding a hammer onto an anvil, sparks flying from a strip of glowing metal.

  Peering between boulders, watching the car emerge from the pines, the sniper murmured, “I can do it as soon as he gets out of the car.”

  “Not until I tell you.”

  “But—”

  “There's a schedule,” the spotter insisted. “The backup team needs to be in place, ready to cut the phone line to the house. That way, nobody can call the police. Otherwise, with only a couple of roads out of the valley, the authorities could seal us off.”

  “The survivors could still use a cell phone.”

  “This area's too remote for one.”

  “You're sure?” the sniper asked.

  “I drove by and experimented, trying to phone restaurants in town. The calls wouldn't go through. Later, I confirmed it by asking the phone company. The canyon walls prevent transmissions from reaching here or going out.”

  The shooter gazed longingly at the car as it crossed the canyon. “So when will the backup team be ready?”

  The spotter touched his left ear, securing the bud of a radio receiver. “They're saying ten minutes.”

  Staring toward the canyon floor, he concentrated on the figure in the driver's seat. Even at a distance, the solid-looking shoulders and chest were all too familiar, impossible to be mistaken. The intelligent brow and handsome jaw had always been attractive to women, although amazingly the target had a talent for minimizing his appearance when he was on duty, dimming the glow in his hazel eyes, lowering his shoulders, making himself almost invisible. He still wore his sandy hair in a professional neutral cut.

  It's been close to three years, the spotter thought. How the hell are you doing, good buddy?

  A painful combination of anger and affection seized him.

  “He'd dead, but he doesn't know it,” the sniper said. “Ten minutes? Sure. I can wait that long. This is what it feels like.”

  “Feels like?”

  “To be God.”

  5

  Driving across the pasture, Cavanaugh smiled at the half-dozen horses grazing near a stream. A mare galloped toward him. She was a five-year-old quarter horse named after her color, Chestnut. As she ran parallel to the moving car, Cavanaugh lowered his window.

  “Guess what I have?” He nodded toward a paper bag next to him.

  The horse kept thundering next to him.

  Cavanaugh pulled out a big red apple. “Want it now or later?”

  Chestnut snapped at it.

  “Hey, where are your manners?” Cavanaugh tossed the apple over Chestnut's head and watched her veer toward where it landed in the grass.

  The five other horses, one of them a colt, realized what was happening and galloped in Cavanaugh's direction.

  “I suppose I need to be fair.” He dumped the bag of apples onto the grass and drove on.

  Beyond the pasture was a three-story lodge. Made of logs, it had a wide, welcoming porch. Ten years earlier, while working in the area (his client: a political columnist threatened by a stalker), Cavanaugh had heard about a dude ranch for sale. Investigating while off-duty, he was so impressed by the peaceful feel of the canyon that he did one of the few impulsive things in his life and bought it.

  It was expensive. For the down payment, he needed to hand over every dollar he'd saved as a protective agent and to accept two high-paying, extremely dangerous assignments. Thereafter, most of his income went toward the mortgage. But he never regretted his decision. Between jobs, sometimes convalescing from injuries, he came back to his magical hundred acres, which had the equally magical name of “home.”

  As Cavanaugh drove toward the lodge, he saw Jamie standing on the porch, attaching a walkie-talkie to her belt. Smiling, she stepped out into the sun, which glinted off her brunette ponytail. She was five feet ten, her jeans emphasizing her figure, her cowboy boots lifting her heels, making her legs seem to stretch up forever toward her hips. Her face had the narrow chin and high cheekbones of classical beauty. But her green eyes, a mixture of amusement and intelligence, were what most captivated him.

  He parked in front of the lodge and got out of the car.

  “That Pizza Hut thing made me hungry. I don't suppose you actually did bring a pizza,” Jamie said.

  “Nope.”

  “Bummer.”

  “Something better.”

  “A Philadelphia steak sandwich?” she asked.

  “How can you be so thin and think so much about food?”

  “Because that's all I do is think about it. You feed the horses, but you never feed me. Come on, ‘fess up, you brought Kentucky Fried Chicken, right?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Double bummer.”

  “Even better than KFC.” Cavanaugh leaned into the car and picked up a small case indented with the words HECKLER & KOCH.

  “Awww,” Jamie said, “you're right. It is better than KFC. You really know the way to a woman's heart. I just love it when
you bring me a gun.”

  “But not just any gun.”

  “Don't keep me in suspense. What makes this one so special?”

  “It's called the P-2000.”

  “My, yes, that certainly sounds special.”

  Their boot steps echoing, they crossed the porch and entered the lodge. A spacious “communal room,” as the real-estate brochure described it, had a wide staircase, a huge stone fireplace, a battered upright piano, a long table where lodgers had eaten during the dude-ranch days, and several ceiling light fixtures in the shape of wagon wheels.

  “Do you remember the first rule of choosing a handgun?” Cavanaugh asked.

  “The gun has to fit the hand.”

  “Right. If the grip's too large, your finger can't reach the trigger without stretching. The gun twists to the side and ruins your aim.”

  Reaching the kitchen, Cavanaugh looked at a row of monitors under a cupboard. Linked to security cameras, the screens showed various areas of the property. Satisfied that everything appeared normal, he turned toward where Mrs. Patterson rolled a pie crust. A sixty-year-old widow whose children and grandchildren lived in Jackson, she had worked for the dude ranch and agreed to stay.

  “What kind of pie are you making?” Jamie asked.

  “Pumpkin.”

  “Maybe I'll skip dinner tonight and just eat the pie.”

  Cavanaugh shook his head in amazement at Jamie's appetite. He opened a cupboard, took out a box of nine-millimeter ammunition and an equipment bag, then headed toward the back door. “It's going to be loud for a while, Mrs. Patterson.”