The Protector Page 6

  "How many assailants?" Tension made Duncan's voice sound tight.

  "Maybe eight."

  "Are they in pursuit?"

  "I'm not sure. I might have ..." Speeding past more dismal houses toward the highway, Cavanaugh peered again toward his rearview mirror. He was about to finish his sentence with "lost them," when two cars skidded around a gloomy corner back there and rushed in his direction. "Yes," he said. "They're in pursuit."

  Cavanaugh reached the access ramp and saw a sign. "I'm heading north on Route Twenty-one." He saw another sign. "The Me Carter Highway."

  "If you're leaving the river and moving north on Twenty-one"—Cavanaugh imagined Duncan scanning a map on a computer screen—"keep going in that direction. In about ten miles, you'll intersect with Route Three. Head east, then north on Seventeen. Can you make it to Teterboro?"

  Duncan meant the Teterboro airport, the fourth-important airport in the New York City area, after Kennedy, La Guardia, and Newark International. Located where Routes 17 and 46 converged near Interstate 80 in New Jersey, Teterboro was twelve miles from midtown Manhattan via the George Washington Bridge. It was designated a "reliever" airstrip, which meant that corporate, charter, and private aircraft used it, taking pressure off the larger airports and the large passenger carriers they served. Because many of Global Protective Services' clients were corporate executives, the agency had an office and a helicopter at the airport, although these had logos for Atlas Avionics, a Protective Services subsidiary.

  "I'm in the Teterboro office now." Duncan's voice crackled from the storm's interference. "We're doing a handover." Translation: After having been protected while in Manhattan, a client was being transferred from an armored car to the client's corporate jet, where non-Protective Services agents would take over.

  When the jet left the ground, the assignment was completed. "Can you get here?"

  "I'd better." Cavanaugh studied the fuel gauge, which had dropped from three-quarters to half indicating how much gas he was losing from bullet holes in the tank.

  "Call back in ten minutes," Duncan said. "By then, I'll have rendezvous specifics."

  Cavanaugh broke the transmission and put the phone down beside the .45 on the seat. He stared toward the rearview mirror and saw the two pursuing cars merge onto the highway. Because of the storm, most cars had their headlights on, but these cars stayed dark as they sped past traffic.

  The sirens receded into the distance.

  "Prescott, you didn't answer my question." Cavanaugh wiped rain from his face and concentrated to pass a transport truck. "Why don't you want me to go to the police?"

  "They wouldn't know what to do with us. Guns. A stolen car. Christ." Prescott's face had lost some of its puffiness, tension shrinking it. "They'd question us on the street. They'd question us at the station. When they finally let me go, the people who want me would've had time to get ready again."

  "True." Cavanaugh wiped more rain from his face. "But I get the feeling you've got another reason for not going to the police."

  "The same reason I wouldn't go to the Drug Enforcement Administration. I don't trust anything to do with the government."

  "The Drug Enforcement Administration? What have they got to do with ..." Cavanaugh had a sudden sick feeling that Prescott might be a monster after all.

  "The men chasing us work for Jesus Escobar." Fear made Prescott's face the color of his soiled white shirt.

  Cavanaugh felt even sicker: Jesus Escobar was one of the biggest drug lords in South America. He took another quick look at the rearview mirror and saw that the cars chasing him were drawing closer. "You promised me this has nothing to do with drugs. I don't protect drug dealers!"

  "I told you I wasn't a drug dealer. That's the truth. But I didn't say this has nothing to do with drugs."

  "You're not making sense."

  "Have you ever heard of D.P. Bio Lab?"

  "No." His tires sprayed a haze of water from the pavement, as Cavanaugh sped past another transport truck.

  "The D.P. stands for Daniel Prescott. It's mine—a sophisticated biotech research facility." The pupils of Prescott's eyes grew larger with fear as he stared back through the rain toward the two pursuing cars. "If you had heard of D.P. Bio Lab, I'd have been concerned. Most of my work is for the government."

  Cavanaugh suddenly had an uneasy feeling about what he was going to hear.

  "As part of the latest antidrug campaign, I was hired to do research on the parts of the brain involved with addiction." Emotion made Prescott speak quickly. "Addiction's immensely complicated. It isn't clear whether some people become addicted for psychological or physical reasons." Prescott spoke faster. "Different personalities become addicted to different effects. Passives go for depressants. Active types crave stimulants. Sometimes it's the reverse."

  The pursuit cars were now a hundred yards behind the rusted sedan.

  "The idea was," Prescott said, "if I could find a common denominator, a physical trigger common to all of them, in the cerebral cortex, for example, or the hypothalamus, there might be a way to stop that trigger from functioning. The addiction wouldn't happen."

  The pursuit cars were now close enough that in the rearview mirror Cavanaugh could see there were four men in each. One driver had a mustache. Another had shaved his head. Their eyes had the determination of manhunters.

  "And did you find it—the addiction trigger?"

  "No."

  Cavanaugh tried to anticipate how the gunmen would handle this. They want Prescott alive, he thought. They won't shoot at me. Not driving this fast. They don't want to cause an accident that'll kill Prescott. Their only choice is to force me off the road. "I didn't find a trigger that could be disabled to prevent addiction," Prescott said. "What I found instead, God help me, is an easy-to-manufacture chemical that can instantly cause an addiction. To itself. It's cheap to produce. It doesn't require elaborate equipment. And the manufacturing process doesn't have toxic side effects or cause explosions and fires the way some illegal drugs can."

  Cavanaugh stared again toward the rearview mirror. Speeding through the rain, the pursuit cars were now only twenty yards behind the sedan.

  "As soon as I reported my findings," Prescott said, "the agency I worked for became so alarmed, they terminated the research program."

  One of the cars positioned itself behind the sedan while the other came up on Cavanaugh's left. They're going to try to box us in and push us off the road, Cavanaugh thought.

  "Suddenly, the DEA showed up and confiscated my research," Prescott said. "They swore my lab assistants and me to secrecy. Not that my lab assistants are a security risk. I'm the only one who knows the formula."

  Cavanaugh studied traffic ahead and made a quick decision. Prescott's voice shook. His words gushed out. "But Escobar must have an informant in the DEA. My research is so well guarded there that even Escobar's people can't breach it. That leaves me. They want to capture me and force me to tell them the formula."

  "For God's sake, why didn't the DEA try to protect you?" "They did. But Escobar's people attempted to capture me anyhow. I think somebody at the DEA works for him and told him where I was. The team guarding me was attacked. I barely escaped a kidnapping attempt. That's when I took advantage of the confusion and slipped away, managing to reach the warehouse."

  "Which you'd set up earlier. In case," Cavanaugh said.

  "But I couldn't stay there forever. I'd have run out of food. I wanted people to talk to. I'm tired of being afraid."

  "I'll do my best to fix that." Cavanaugh rolled down his window. In addition to the rain, he heard the car coming up next to him. "Do you know how to load a pistol?"

  "No."

  It figures, Cavanaugh thought. He'd been about to give Prescott one of the Sig's spare magazines and have him reload the weapon. Now there wasn't time to explain what to do. Cavanaugh was going to have to rely on Prescott's .45.

  The car on Cavanaugh's left came abreast of the sedan and slammed against its side.<
br />
  "Make sure your seat belt's tight," Cavanaugh said quickly.

  The car struck the driver's side again. Cavanaugh heard metal crumble. Concentrating to control his steering with his left hand, he used his right hand to pick up the .45. "This pistol had better work."

  He transferred the .45 to his left hand and now controlled the steering wheel with his right.

  The car on the left struck Cavanaugh's side a third time, trying to force him onto the highway's shoulder.

  Feeling the shudder of the impact, Cavanaugh thumbed off the safety on the cocked .45.

  * * *

  13

  Their mass being equal, two cars can bang at each other's side for quite a while, and if the drivers are skilled, neither car will be forced off the road. The trouble is that the car banging at Cavanaugh's rusted sedan was bigger and heavier. The laws of physics were in its favor. Eventually, its weight would shove Ca-vanaugh's sedan onto the shoulder.

  He could have shot the driver, but as the attacking car veered out of control, there was too much risk that it would strike cars behind it and kill their occupants. Moreover, the bullets could go through the driver and continue toward cars on the opposite side of the highway, possibly killing someone over there.

  But there was another way to use the .45.

  "Prescott, put your hands over your ears."

  Cavanaugh's own ears had been ringing incessantly since he'd started shooting. Now he prepared himself for them to hurt even more.

  Pressing the accelerator hard, he surged forward. Abreast of the attacking car's engine, he shoved the .45 out the window, aimed at the front hood, and fired seven times, emptying the pistol as quickly as he could pull the trigger. Under the hood, the fan disintegrated. The radiator exploded. Oil and carbon dust blew from the engine, erupting from the holes that his bullets had made in the hood of the engine. Steam from the radiator burst from the front of the car.

  The slide on top of the .45 stayed back, indicating that the pistol was empty. At once, Cavanaugh pulled the weapon back into the sedan so the gunmen would know the shooting was over, so they wouldn't return fire. As it was, they had plenty to concern them without disobeying Escobar's orders and endangering Prescott's life by shooting at the driver of the vehicle Prescott was in. The power of the .45 had damaged the engine enough that the attacking car rapidly lost speed. Falling back, enveloped by more oil vapor and steam, the crippled vehicle angled toward the left shoulder.

  The car behind Cavanaugh tried to compensate by speeding close to him and slamming the sedan's back bumper. Apart from sending a shudder through the sedan, this had no effect on Cavanaugh's ability to control the vehicle. Although the tactic looked dramatic, it accomplished little. When the pursuing car hit Cavanaugh's bumper a second time, all he had to do was touch the brake pedal a little, and the car behind him was reduced to doing little more than pushing him. That the attacking driver thought ramming would work told Cavanaugh that his opponent didn't have much experience with car fighting.

  There was only one effective maneuver in a car fight. But first Cavanaugh had to get into position. He veered unexpectedly onto the right shoulder and pressed the brakes, applying most but not all of their force. He could tell how much force he was applying by judging the speed of the brake pulses through the pedal. Ninety-eight percent pressure gave him stopping power while at the same time allowing him to continue to control the vehicle's steering. One hundred percent would have meant that the swiftly accelerating pulses had abruptly stopped and the brakes locked, turning the sedan into little more than a couple of tons of skidding metal.

  He dropped behind the pursuing car, released the brakes, and came up behind it, still on the highway's shoulder. Aiming his left front fender, he tapped the side of the opposing car's right rear fender in the so-called precision immobilization technique. The PIT maneuver required virtually no force, just a kiss of the left front fender.

  Again, physics took over. The opposing car spun 180 degrees, rear to front, the startled occupants staring back toward Cavanaugh, face-to-face with him. At the same time, the car shifted sideways, to the right, pivoting onto the highway's shoulder. But as it continued to spin, it moved so far to the right that it crashed against a barrier at the side of the highway. Meanwhile, Cavanaugh steered onto the highway and sped forward.

  "Prescott, look behind us. Are there any other cars going off the road? Any accidents?"

  Prescott peered back in amazement. "No. My God, some cars are sliding, but they're holding the road. No other accidents. I can't believe you did it. You got us away from them."

  "No," Cavanaugh said.

  "But—"

  "The PIT maneuver barely damages the other car," Ca-vanaugh said.

  "The what?"

  "Unless that car broke something when its side struck that barrier, those men'll soon come after us again." Cavanaugh stared toward the fuel indicator on the dashboard. The needle was now at one-quarter. "Plus, we've got too many bullet holes in the gas tank. We'll soon be on empty."

  In the distance, a new group of sirens wailed.

  Cavanaugh checked the rearview mirror: no sign of the second car pulling onto the highway. He peered ahead through the rain and saw an exit ramp. He was far enough along the highway that the men in the car behind him might not notice the rusted sedan leaving. Or so he hoped.

  The sirens wailed louder.

  "Time for a change of plan." Cavanaugh took the exit ramp, came to the bottom, saw a shopping mall on the left, and headed toward its crowded parking lot. People in other cars gaped at the smashed front end of Cavanaugh's car.

  "Prescott, use your shirtsleeve. Wipe everything you touched. Smudge your fingerprints."

  Counting on the rain to obscure his movements, Cavanaugh entered the expansive parking lot, but every space in the row he chose was filled. Cursing, he steered through puddles toward the next row, where all the spaces were also full.

  Sure, he thought. A rainy Sunday afternoon. How do people pass the time? They go to the shopping mall.

  Cavanaugh tried the next row, and the next, and the next. All were filled with vehicles.

  In the distance, the sirens stopped, presumably at the car whose engine Cavanaugh had disabled.

  The black car suddenly steered into the row Cavanaugh was headed along and sped toward him. Through the car's flapping windshield wipers, the three passengers and the skinhead driver glared at him.

  Cavanaugh braked, put the car in reverse, and started backing away, but not before a man on the passenger side lowered the window and leaned out into the rain, aiming a pistol with a silencer on it. Cavanaugh didn't hear the shot, but he did hear the bullet's impact against the radiator.

  Steam rose from the puncture. Whump. A second bullet hit the radiator. The assault team had learned from the way Cavanaugh had disabled the first car by firing the .45 at the engine and the radiator. The pistol the passenger used wasn't large enough to be a .45. It wouldn't damage the engine as much, but it would definitely play hell with the radiator.

  Backing swiftly, Cavanaugh swung the steering wheel, pivoting the sedan 180 degrees. In the limited space, on wet pavement, he couldn't execute the backward half spin as neatly as he was capable of doing. His right front fender glanced off a parked van's taillight, sending a shudder through the sedan. Even so, in a rush, he corrected the steering and now faced the mall instead of the pursuing car. He rammed the gearshift into forward and sped along the row.

  But as rain suppressed the steam from the radiator, Cavanaugh felt his chest cramp when a woman holding an umbrella stepped from between cars. She walked halfway across the open area and froze at the sight of Cavanaugh's car rocketing toward her.

  * * *

  14

  Never look at what you're trying to avoid. Always look at where you want the car to go. Cavanaugh's instructors had drilled that rule into him at the Bill Scott Raceway in West Virginia, where Global Protective Services and various intelligence agencies sent their operator
s for training in evasive driving.

  "Why is it that, in many accidents, cars get hit directly on the side or the front, as if there wasn't any attempt to evade them?" Duncan had demanded from the passenger seat.

  Cavanaugh hadn't been able to answer, too busy rounding a curve at 120 miles an hour.

  "Why is it that if a driver hits a patch of ice and skids off the road, the only telephone pole for a hundred yards or the only tree in a field will be what that driver slams into square on?"

  Again, Cavanaugh hadn't been able to answer, too busy feeling the hum and pulse of his car's tires, knowing that if the hum sounded any higher, if the pulse got any faster, his tires would lose their grip on the curve and he'd fly off the raceway.

  Duncan had answered for him. "Because the driver looks at the car that veers in front of him, or the driver looks at the telephone pole at the side of the road, or the driver looks at the tree in the middle of the field, and although the driver wants to avoid them, he hits the damned things. Why does he hit them?"

  "Because he looks at them," Cavanaugh had finally managed to answer, speeding out of the curve.

  "Yes. You steer where your eyes lead you. If you look at what you're trying to avoid, you'll head in that direction."

  Suddenly, a large cardboard box had hurtled across the track in front of Cavanaugh. Startled, he'd looked at it and almost steered toward it. With a flick of his eyes, he'd stared forward again and managed to remain on the track. His speeding car had veered only slightly as he passed where the box flew into a ditch. He thought he'd seen a rope on the box.

  "Did somebody hide at the side of the track and yank that box across?" Cavanaugh had rushed into another curve.

  "Eighty percent of the beginning students here see that box and follow it into the ditch," Duncan had replied. "So what's the lesson?"

  "Look at where you want to go, not at what you're afraid you'll hit."