The Protector Page 5

  When they didn't move, he fired the pistol over their heads. In the shadows, the muzzle flash was vivid, the ear-torturing roar making the group stumble back.

  "Run!" Cavanaugh's own ears were punished as he fired twice more above their heads, and now terror made them move a little faster, desperate to get away from the madman with the gun.

  The next time Cavanaugh fired over their heads did the trick. They broke into a full-sized panic and scrambled toward the exit. Bumping into one another, they charged out into the rain.

  * * *

  10

  "Follow them!" Cavanaugh told Prescott.

  To increase momentum, Cavanaugh fired one last time, so terrifying the group that, unheeding, they charged through the storm. There must have been thirty of them at least, scurrying for whatever shelter they could find. He urged Prescott to keep running with them. Hoping that the chaos would distract the assault team enough to make them hold fire, he felt the cold rain drench him as he and Prescott rushed down a concrete ramp and across a garbage-strewn parking area.

  Scarecrows ran everywhere around them. Ahead, some ducked through a gap in a chain-link fence. Splashing through puddles, Cavanaugh led Prescott toward the hole. He put his hand on Prescott's head, protecting it as he shoved him through. Ducking after him, he felt frozen by more than the rain because, with just a few derelicts around them now, he and Prescott were obvious targets. The only things in their favor were the distance and the difficulty of aiming at moving targets from an elevated position.

  Blam!

  A shot from behind them tore up pavement. "Prescott, that warehouse ahead!"

  Blam!

  More pavement disintegrated. "Almost there, Prescott!"

  Blam!

  A chunk of pavement zapped past Cavanaugh's forehead. "Move it, Prescott!"

  Cavanaugh couldn't allow himself to run as fast as he was able. He had to match Prescott's pace, shouting encouragement, grabbing Prescott's arm when the heavy man seemed in danger of faltering. Even so, Cavanaugh's lungs burned from exertion as they rounded the warehouse corner.

  Shielded by the wall, Prescott bent over and shuddered, gulping air. "We did it," he managed to say. "I can't believe we—"

  "Keep moving."

  "But I have to catch my—"

  "No time. Let's go." Cavanaugh tugged Prescott.

  He studied the warehouse. Its windows weren't broken. Boxes were stacked inside. Still in business, he thought. As the rain lanced against him, he came to a door and tried it. Locked. Although it was only midafternoon, no lights glowed inside. He didn't see any movement. Not surprising on a Sunday afternoon.

  He managed to yank Prescott into a half-run, bringing him to the front of the building, where they faced smaller buildings and then the storm-shrouded river. Although those other buildings had been maintained also, none showed any activity. There might be a watchman somewhere, but Cavanaugh didn't see him, and for sure, he wasn't going to shout to get the watchman's attention. That would also attract the assault team's attention. By now, they had to be converging on this area.

  As the rain made Cavanaugh's clothes stick to his skin, causing him to shiver, he frantically considered and rejected options. He could pick the lock on a door and try to hide with Prescott in one of the buildings. But every door he saw had a barred window. All the assault team would need to do was look through each window. The splashes of water that he and Prescott couldn't possibly avoid leaving on the floor inside would tell their hunters which building they'd chosen to hide in.

  With a hand on Prescott's arm, Cavanaugh moved along the deserted, rainy street. The seething dark clouds and the shadows from the warehouses turned afternoon into violent dusk. That'll give us some cover, he thought. But it won't be enough. Tensely aware that he and Prescott couldn't stay in the open, he looked for a hiding place. A Dumpster briefly attracted his attention, but it was full, and anyway, it would only be another trap. Eventually, the gunmen would check it.

  "Have to rest," Prescott murmured. Fatigue and his weight outmatched his fear now, making him plod.

  "Soon."

  Thrusting him farther along the street, Cavanaugh reconsidered picking the lock on one of the doors. It would take a while for the assault team to discover which building he'd chosen. It would take them even longer to search inside and discover where he and Prescott were hiding. Meanwhile, he could use his cell phone to get help from Protective Services.

  Possibly the explosion and the shots had caused someone in the area to phone the police, but the explosion might also have been attributed to thunder or a lightning strike. As for the shots, perhaps the storm had muffled them, or perhaps they were common in this run-down neighborhood. In any case, if the police did arrive, they'd be a complication more than a help. After all, since the gunmen had disguised themselves as crack addicts, could a few members of the assault team not also disguise themselves as police officers? Cavanaugh wouldn't know if he could trust them. It was safer to depend on Protective Services. He'd phone Duncan. A rescue team could arrive in ...

  When? Fifteen minutes? Unlikely. A half hour? Maybe. But not guaranteed. And how would the rescue team be able to determine which of the several buildings was the one in which they were hiding?

  We have to keep moving, Cavanaugh thought. He had his right hand on his pistol and his left on Prescott's soaked shirt, pulling him through the rain. Ahead, another chain-link fence caught his attention. But this one was intact. It had a stout metal gate with a lock. Next to it, a sign on a building read wilson brothers, construction contractors. Shivering from the cold, he led Prescott closer to the fence and saw two forklifts, a dump truck, a pickup truck, and a beat-up rust-colored sedan that looked to be twenty years old.

  Please, let there be gas in it. Cavanaugh removed his lock picks from a slit beneath the collar of his soaked jacket. He felt increasingly vulnerable as he holstered his pistol, chose two picks that would fit the lock, and worked both of them, one applying torque while the other freed the lock's pins. Ten seconds later, he had the gate open.

  No sooner had he tugged Prescott into the parking area and closed the gate than several men raced between two warehouses down the street. He heard their urgent footfalls and angry voices as he forced Prescott down behind the rust-colored sedan, barely noticing that the vehicle's color was due to actual rust and not paint.

  He tried the driver's door and found it unlocked. The construction company must have thought the fence was sufficient protection for a car that looked like junk. The voices of the men sounded nearer. If they get to the fence, if they notice it isn't locked . . .

  Rain misting his eyes, Cavanaugh opened the door. He slid into the passenger seat, faced the steering column, braced his feet against it, and used both hands to yank on the steering wheel, breaking the internal lock that kept the steering wheel from moving. He pulled the hood-release lever and scrambled into the rain, hurrying to lift the hood. A bundle of wires led into the engine compartment from the steering column. Knowing the wires he needed, he pulled a safety pin from under his collar, pierced the wires so they formed a circuit, and closed the pin over them. The engine started.

  The sound made the men rush closer, their footsteps and voices more audible now.

  No longer caring about making noise, Cavanaugh slammed the hood and shoved Prescott into the car. "Put on your seat belt!"

  He rammed the gearshift into drive and stomped the gas pedal. "Roll down your window!"

  * * *

  11

  The rusted car surprised Cavanaugh by rocketing forward with amazing energy. Somebody had obviously cared for the engine, even though the body had been allowed to go to hell.

  "Roll down your window!" Cavanaugh shouted again to Prescott, and Prescott—conditioned by now—instantly obeyed.

  "Slide toward the floor!" Cavanaugh drew his pistol.

  As the car struck the fence, headlights shattering, the fence slamming open to the right, Cavanaugh fired repeatedly through Prescott'
s open window at two nearby gunmen. They'd been coming to check the fence. As it slammed open, they'd halted in openmouthed shock and now lurched back from the impact of Cavanaugh's bullets.

  The slide on his pistol stayed open. The magazine was empty. But as he steered violently to the left to get away from other gunmen suddenly appearing, he couldn't free his hands to reload the Sig with the remaining magazine on his belt. He'd have to rely on the .45 he'd taken from Prescott.

  He pulled it from under his belt and dropped it on the seat, but as things were, he didn't have time to shoot anyhow. He was too busy trying to control the car. It fishtailed on the wet, oily pavement. The rain struck the windshield so hard that he could barely see the narrow street ahead. With his left hand, he fumbled for the windshield-wiper control on the steering wheel, twisted it, and discovered that only the wiper on the driver's side was functional. It only had one speed: ultrafast.

  As the wiper flipped hysterically back and forth, a bullet shattered the sedan's rear window and went through the roof just above Cavanaugh's head. He sank low, trying to peer over the dashboard at the rain-obscured street, trying also to make himself a minimal target, even though he knew that the bullets aimed at the trunk had a good chance of plowing through the trunk, through the backseat, and through the front seat, possibly hitting him.

  He didn't care if the assault team shot at the gas tank, which the gauge on the dashboard told him was three-quarters full. True, the bullet holes would cause him to lose fuel, but unless the gunmen were using tracer rounds, which they weren't, there wasn't any risk that the fuel would explode. That impossible phenomenon of bullets igniting gasoline happened only in urban myth. If anything, the fuel in the tank could help him by slowing any bullets that hit it and preventing them from plowing through the seats.

  The better tactic would be for the assault team to shoot at Ca-vanaugh's tires. But even then, the damage would be much less than what might generally be expected. A blast from a shotgun or a volley from an automatic rifle could blow a tire apart. But if a tire was hit by one or two bullets from a handgun, the tire usually retained air for about five miles, a distance that would give Cavanaugh a chance to elude the assault team. If necessary (he'd been forced to do this a couple of times), he would keep driving on a wheel's metal rim.

  Another bullet smashed through the rear window. This one blew through the front windshield. Cavanaugh heard it zip past. He felt the air forced away strike his cheek. But he couldn't think about how close it had come, and he couldn't think about Prescott huddling as near to the floor as the bulky man could press himself.

  What Cavanaugh concentrated on was trying to see past the rain and the blur of the superquick windshield wiper as he drove faster. A long black car sped from a side street and skidded to a stop, blocking the narrow intersection ahead. Men jumped out into the storm and aimed pistols from behind the vehicle. But before they could shoot, they realized that instead of trapping Cavanaugh, they'd trapped themselves, for Cavanaugh didn't have time to stop. Their look of confidence changing to one of panic, they bolted toward buildings on either side.

  "Prescott, brace yourself! There's going to be a hell of a bump."

  As Cavanaugh sped toward the car blocking the intersection, he saw enough through the rain to be certain that there wasn't space on either side of the car for him to swing around it. That left only two choices. The first was to yank the lever for the parking brake and twist the steering wheel a quarter turn, spinning the car 180 degrees, facing it in the opposite direction: the so-called bootlegger's turn. He would then release the parking brake and speed from the barricade.

  But that wouldn't solve anything, because the new direction would only lead back to the gunmen chasing them. Besides, the slippery pavement would make it difficult to execute the maneuver with precision. That left choice number two.

  Cavanaugh checked the speedometer. Sixty. Too fast. Sweating, he eased his foot off the accelerator and tried to keep his moist hands firmly at ten o'clock and two o'clock on the steering wheel, his fingers spread for maximum grip.

  It was obvious that if he hit the car straight on, he would probably kill Prescott and himself—an irresistible force against an immovable mass. But there was a way to survive the crash. What he had to do was change the relationship between the force and the mass.

  "Here it comes, Prescott! Hold on!"

  Reducing his speed to forty-five miles an hour, Cavanaugh stared past the frantic windshield wiper toward the vehicle spread sideways in front of him. He aimed toward where the vehicle had the least weight—the trunk end, which was on his right. He focused on the rear fender. At the same time, he turned so far to the right that only the area around his left headlight would strike the car's fender.

  The impact sent a shock wave of punishment through him. Prepared for his head to jerk back, he hunkered down, bracing his head against the seat. Even then, the jolt to his neck was painful.

  Instead of 100 percent force hitting 100 percent mass, the precise way in which Cavanaugh rammed the other vehicle reduced both factors by two-thirds. More glass shattered. Metal crumpled. The opposing car pivoted in front of Cavanaugh, its trunk end swerving out of the way, creating a gap through which Cavanaugh increased speed, stomping his foot on the accelerator.

  Behind him, the assault team overcame their shock enough to fire at the receding vehicle. Cavanaugh stayed low, hearing bullets whump against the back of the car, some of them going through the now-almost-nonexistent front windshield. One bullet whacked into the dashboard. Another blew away the spastic windshield wiper.

  As rain lashed through the gap where the windshield had been, Cavanaugh continued speeding down the narrow street. He heard sirens in the distance.

  "Prescott, are you all right?"

  No answer.

  Between gusts of wind, Cavanaugh saw a looming intersection and eased his foot onto the brake pedal so he could make a turn. The slippery pavement caused the tires to slide as if on ice. He released his foot from the brake, simultaneously applying less force to the accelerator, letting the engine act as a brake. Even so, the intersection was behind him before he could make the turn.

  "Prescott, talk to me! Are you all right?"

  Huddled close to the floor, Prescott moved.

  "Glad to know you're still with us."

  As the distant sirens wailed louder, another intersection loomed, and this time, Cavanaugh was able to control his speed enough to stop the tires from gliding as he turned to the right.

  Not a target at the moment, he felt marginally elated as he asked Prescott, "Are you hit?"

  "No."

  "Then get up here and make yourself useful."

  "Don't feel so good."

  "I've had better days, too. Look, I need to concentrate on driving. Take my phone from my jacket and call this number." Cavanaugh dictated it. "Then give me back the phone so I can get help."

  "Yes, help," Prescott said.

  "And then," Cavanaugh said, "you're going to tell me who the hell those guys are and why they're so eager to kill you."

  * * *

  12

  "They're not eager to kill me," Prescott said.

  "What?"

  "They want me alive."

  Abruptly, Cavanaugh felt a deeper chill than that caused by the rain blowing in on him. As he checked the rearview mirror to see if the assault team was in pursuit, his sense of reality shifted dramatically, making him think of the attack in an entirely different way. In the warehouse, when the gunmen had fired, Cavanaugh had believed that the shadows and the rain falling through the roof had thrown off the attackers' aim. Now he realized that the bullets had, in fact, been carefully placed, trying to stop Prescott but not to kill him. If anyone was a shoot-to-kill target, I was, Cavanaugh thought. It was now clear to him that the bullets aimed toward the car had been directed toward the driver's side, toward him, not toward Prescott. The only indiscriminate part of the attack had been the rocket aimed toward the bricked-over window, but
that, too, could be explained. In retrospect, Cavanaugh realized that the explosive force of the rocket had been less than normal. The damage it inflicted to the building should have been far more extensive. The shell's power had been reduced in the hopes that it would stun, not kill.

  "Sure." Gratified to see traffic through the rain, Cavanaugh steered from the warehouses and reached decrepit houses near a highway. "They disguised themselves as crack addicts, blending with their surroundings, hoping to catch you by surprise. When I showed up, they realized the situation was about to change and quickly adjusted their time table, attacking before they were ready."

  Ahead, the sirens grew louder.

  "Use my cell phone," Cavanaugh repeated. "Press the numbers I gave you."

  Prescott finally did. "Here. It's ringing on the other end."

  As Cavanaugh released his right hand from the steering wheel and took the phone, he decided to test Prescott by saying, "Those sirens. Don't you want me to go to the police?"

  "No," Prescott said.

  "Why not?"

  "No police," Prescott emphasized.

  Before Cavanaugh could question him further, he heard Duncan's voice say, "Global Protective Services."

  "This is Cavanaugh. I'm in Condition Red."

  Cavanaugh imagined Duncan sitting ramrod-straight.

  The wind and the roar of the broken muffler made it difficult for Cavanaugh to hear what Duncan said next: "The location transmitter in your Taurus isn't functioning. I can't find you on the screen."

  "The Taurus is history. Prescott and I are in a stolen car." Working to control the vehicle with his left hand, Cavanaugh pressed the cell phone harder to his ear.

  "Give me your location."

  "I'm going to voice encryption." Cavanaugh pressed a button at the bottom of the phone, which activated a scrambler. If the men in the pursuing cars had cell-phone scanners, they wouldn't be able to overhear. "I'm still in Newark," he continued. "Heading away from the river. I see a lot of traffic ahead, but I can't identify the highway."