The Protector

14

After dark, Cavanaugh drove along Highway 1 to a low bridge located just south of Point Lobos, near the Highlands. The terrain there suited his needs. It was also where Prescott had forced the Taurus into the water. He parked along the side of the road, waited for a break in the passing headlights of traffic, then lugged the collapsed rubber boat down the slope to the water. After using a pressurized canister to inflate the boat, he anchored it to a rock and made two more cautious trips back and forth from the car, bringing the small outboard motor and a buoyant waterproof bag containing his equipment. He had put on his wet suit in the motel room. Now all he had to do was take off the sport coat that disguised what he was wearing. Rubber gloves and diver's boots protected his hands and feet as he pushed off from the rocks. He started the motor and headed out to the moonlit sea, staying a hundred yards offshore, following the contour of the bluffs of the Highlands, the speckled lights of houses guiding him.

When he came abreast of the bluff upon which Prescott's house was positioned, he shut off the motor and switched to a paddle, heading in silently. With the electricity restored, several lights around the outside of Prescott's house provided a beacon. But the waves and the undertow made it difficult to control the boat. Sweating from exertion, he had to alternate between port and starboard as he paddled closer to the cliff.

Then he got so close to the surf pounding the rocks that the boat would crash and overturn if he went any nearer. Spray chilled his face. After putting on the wet suit's rubber hood, along with flippers and a face mask equipped with a snorkel, he gripped the buoyant bag that contained his equipment and eased over the side. For an instant, the water was shockingly cold, nearly robbing him of the ability to move. Then the water seeped into his wet suit and formed a thin layer between the wet suit and his skin. Almost immediately, his body heated the water to its own temperature, so that only his face felt cold. The undertow was frighteningly strong, however. Using all the power in his arms and legs, he struggled through the turbulent waves, tugging his equipment bag via a strong nylon cord looped around his left wrist. A wave lifted him, threatening to smash him against the looming rocks. His heart raced sickeningly fast, making him almost change his mind and thrash back to the boat before the current could carry the boat away.

But he couldn't allow himself to back off, couldn't give in to his fear. If he did, he knew it would be the first of many times when he would give in to it. The surf took him under, lifted him, dropped him. With a mighty exhale, he blew water from his snorkel and stared through his water-beaded face mask. Judging the surf, he worked his legs and his arms, straining to avoid rocks projecting from the ocean. A wave slammed him against the cliff.

If not for the buffer of his wet suit, the granite would have flayed his shoulder. Wincing from the impact, he grabbed for an outcrop, was swept away, then was caught by another wave and again slammed against the cliff; but this time, as he groaned, his gloved hand caught a fissure in the rock. He gripped harder and pawed with his other glove. Finding a higher fissure, he pulled himself up before the next wave struck his legs and almost tugged him off the cliff.

As he dangled above the thunderous water, Cavanaugh released one hand from the cliff and pulled off his face mask and snorkel. Breathing greedily, he dropped the mask into the waves, then kicked off his flippers and dropped them also. He crammed his rubber-protected feet into a niche, hung for a moment, sucked more air into his lungs, then slowly began his ascent through the darkness. Spray flew around him. He'd cut off the tips of his rubber gloves so that his fingers would be better able to grip outcrops, but the remainder of the gloves interfered with his mobility. He soon had to release his hands, one at a time, use his teeth to pull off each glove, then drop them to the waves beneath him. Instantly, his palms were cold, but not enough to immobilize his grip, his fingers continuing to grab and hold.

He pulled himself higher. The cord looped around his left wrist was attached to a spool that had a release switch. He'd pressed the switch just before he reached the rocks, allowing the cord to unwind as the waterproof bag floated in the crashing surf. Thus, he could climb without the weight of the bag dragging him back. Higher. He had the sense that his fingers were bleeding. They didn't matter. Only not giving up mattered. He reached for a handhold, shoved his feet into another fissure, reached again, and touched the rock wall at the top, gaining energy from knowing that this part of the ordeal was almost over.

The miniature TV cameras hidden under each corner of the eaves were aimed toward each other. They could show someone creeping around either corner, but the limited field of vision afforded through holes in the birdhouses made it impossible for them to provide a view of the waist-high wall above the cliff. Ca-vanaugh raised himself, balanced on the wall's foot-wide rim, and pulled the cord looped around his wrist, hoisting his equipment bag. Water dripped from the bag as he set it down. Throughout, he studied the back of Prescott's house. Harsh lights illuminated the corners and the French doors across from him. Like the shattered windows, the doors were covered with sheets of plywood. A padlock secured the doors. Yellow crime-scene tape was stretched across them. A police department sign nailed to the plywood warned that trespassers would be prosecuted.

Cavanaugh unzipped the waterproof bag and pulled out the sawed-off shotgun, along with a nylon bag of shells that he hitched over his right shoulder. He removed the Emerson knife and clipped it to the neck of his wet suit. He took out a pouch of his lock-pick tools. Finally, he threw off the wet suit's hood and reached into the bag for night-vision goggles that he'd found at the military-surplus store while buying the Zodiac boat. He draped the goggles around his neck.

Ready, he dropped to the terrace, sank to the flagstones, and squirmed across them toward the French doors, the bottom of which was another area that the angle of the TV cameras couldn't reach. When he came to a crouch, he at last risked being seen as he hurriedly picked the lock. He opened the doors, rushed into the dark house, shut the doors, put on his night-vision goggles, and aimed the shotgun.

^His goggles gave the dark interior a faint green illumination as he checked the wreckage of the living room and then shifted left into the media room, then the guest bedroom and bathroom. These areas weren't his main interest, but he had to make sure they weren't a threat. Satisfied, he crept toward the opposite side of the house, broken glass scraping under his rubber-protected feet. The vague smell of cordite still lingered in the air. At once, Cavanaugh knew that the TV cameras had at the last moment revealed him crouching to pick the padlock and enter the house- because the smell of cordite was overpowered by the sudden pungent stench of the hormone.

Until now, Cavanaugh's wet suit had been comfortably warm. Now the sweat that squirted from his body raised his temperature so much that he felt as if he were in a sauna. Almost dizzy from the heat under his wet suit, he risked taking his right hand off the shotgun for the few seconds he needed to pull down the wet suit's zipper, exposing his chest. The effort made no difference.

In Karen's basement, he had thought he'd endured the full force of the hormone, but now, as the smell became almost unbearable, he understood that he had no idea how powerful Prescott's weapon could be. His legs threatened not to support him. His stomach felt simultaneously scaldingly hot and polar-cold. His pulse was so fast, he came close to fainting.

Part of him wanted to roll into a ball and pray for this nightmare to end. Another part compelled him to pivot in an increasingly rapid circle, pointing his shotgun anywhere and everywhere. His body heat misted the faint green images of his night-vision goggles. Surrounded by every imaginable threat, seeing through fear-narrowed vision, he spotted a man with a pistol aiming at him from the corridor that led to the master bedroom. He came within a millisecond of pulling the trigger, then realized that the man with a pistol was merely a shadow, that this was how the Rangers and the SWAT team had reacted.

Cavanaugh's only advantage was that he'd suffered the hormone's effects and knew what to expect. Even so, as the pungent smell became strong enough to make him taste bile, he heard unnerving noises that he realized were pathetic whimpers forcing their way from his throat. The heaving bellows of his lungs made the whimpers come and go, come and go, each time stronger, building to a scream that he repressed by racing along the corridor to the master bedroom.

Charging inside, he didn't dare think, didn't dare hesitate or second-guess himself. The huge bedroom had an arcade video game next to a luxurious reading chair. A large flat-screen plasma TV was mounted to the wall at the foot of the bed, a cabinet of electronics next to it. To the right of the TV, a sliding door led into a closet. That afternoon, Cavanaugh had looked into the closet and seen Prescott's designer jackets hanging on a rod, cedar shelves of expensive tank tops, T-shirts, and sweaters behind them.

Now he shoved a bureau from the side of the room and rammed it into the closet so hard that he broke off the pole that supported the jackets. He yanked down the electronics cabinet and the plasma TV, shattering its screen. With the closet blocked and the wall at the foot of the bed fully exposed, he pulled earplugs from his bag of shotgun shells and put them on. His shaky fingers could barely do the job. The pungent smell was so overpowering that he came close to bending forward and retching. Cursing, he stepped back, raised the shotgun, and fired at a spot three feet from the ceiling. Nearly knocked back by the recoil, which his shuddering body could barely support, he was gratified that the almost-severed plastic shell separated from its base when the gunpowder detonated. Like a miniature rocket, the main part of the shell and the buckshot within it roared toward the top of the wall, blasting apart on impact, creating a fist-sized hole, through which the buckshot burst like shrapnel. An eerie pale light was visible through the hole.

Cavanaugh yanked the pump on the shotgun's forward grip, ejecting the remainder of the empty shell, chambering a full one. In a fury, he fired just below the ceiling again, aiming toward an area three feet to the left of the first hole. Another miniature rocket seemed to blast a fist-sized hole in the wall. And another. Each hole revealed more of the eerie pale light. The Remington 870 held four shells in its magazine and one in the firing chamber. Cavanaugh rapidly discharged all five, blasting more holes in the wall, working his way downward. The odor of cordite helped to mask the stench of the hormone as he fumbled for more shells and forced his trembling fingers to shove them into the slot under the shotgun. Despite his earplugs, he heard muffled screams behind the wall just before he started shooting again.

He moved the pattern of the fist-sized holes lower, soon reaching five feet down from the ceiling. Prescott screamed more fiercely behind there as Cavanaugh reloaded again and fired, the holes showing even more of the light. The bedroom was filled with a haze of gun smoke. Reload. Fire. Reload. Fire. Now Cavanaugh lowered his aim to three feet above the floor. Prescott's screams came from down there, where he'd taken cover as the descending movement of the blasts pressed him toward the floor.

"You had me believing you'd gone!" Cavanaugh shouted. His fear and the earplugs caused his voice to sound as if it came from a disorienting distance.

"Then I spotted the miniature TV cameras outside the house!" Cavanaugh pumped the shotgun and blew yet another hole in the wall, keeping it three feet above the floor, forcing Prescott to huddle in panic down there. Wood and plaster flew. More of the glowing light was exposed.

"So many cameras!" Cavanaugh's shout was primal.

"Cameras need monitors! So where the hell are the monitors?" As Cavanaugh blasted yet another hole in the wall, the hormone made his bladder want to let go.

"Where's the walk-in closet that ought to go with a bedroom this huge?" Cavanaugh pumped the shotgun and fired. The glow of the monitors streamed through the increasing holes, revealing where they were stacked on shelves against the far left side of the enclosure, away from his shots.

"It couldn't have been hard to put up a wall inside the closet! Something you could pivot like a door and lock on the other side!" Again Cavanaugh pulled the trigger. He knew that the neighbors would hear the shots and phone the police. He didn't care. By the time the police arrived, his business would be finished.

"What did you do, use the van from the parking garage to bring in construction supplies?" Again, Cavanaugh's shotgun roared. "Your neighbors wouldn't have realized you were dividing the closet! Shelves for the monitors! A ventilation duct connected to the main system! A cot! Preserved food! A portable toilet! Like the first time I met you! You were in a hiding hole then! You're in a hiding hole now!"

Cavanaugh pulled the trigger and blasted the middle of the wall. So much light from the monitors now glowed through the holes that it compromised his night-vision goggles, forcing him to raise them to his forehead. "Everybody was so impressed by the huge TV on the wall, they didn't realize you were hidden back there! A couple of days from now, when the police stopped searching for you around here, you could have left the house after dark! You could have stolen a car and been in San Francisco before anybody realized the car was missing! Nobody would have made the connection with you, especially if you remembered to wipe your fingerprints the way I taught you!"

Cavanaugh's hands and face dripped with sweat as he pumped out a final empty shell and started to reload.

Abruptly, he was stunned by a chaos of bullets erupting from the ravaged wall. Wood and plaster flew as an assault rifle fired an automatic volley from the other side. Roberto's AR-15, Cavanaugh thought, diving to the floor. His earplugs only partially muffled the stuttering clamor. Chunks of the wall spewed across the bedroom, bullets rupturing the headboard and the wall behind Cavanaugh. Lamps and picture frames shattered. Amid the widening gaps in the wall and the increasing glow of the monitors, Cavanaugh saw the staccato muzzle flashes.

At once, the shooting stopped. Cavanaugh thought he heard a curse, the scrape of metal, the struggle to release a jammed cartridge. The next instant, what was left of the wall burst apart, Prescott shrieking, his muscular body ramming through the cluster of holes. His upper torso was bare, except for the Kevlar vest he'd pulled over it. The glow of the monitors reflected off the sweat on his powerful-looking arms and shaved scalp. Even in the dim light, his eyes blazed. The sharp contours of his jaw and chin radiated the fury of a cornered predator. Throwing the assault rifle while he charged, he leapt over the broken TV and dove toward Cavanaugh. The impact was so great, Cavanaugh felt air being slammed from his lungs. The Kevlar vest's rigid structure reinforced the solidity of Prescott's body, stunning Cavanaugh to the point that his mind turned gray. Then Prescott's powerful hands clutched Cavanaugh's throat, sending a further shock through his nervous system. Breathless, Cavanaugh felt the bones in his throat bending inward, about to snap. He slammed his hands across Prescott's ears so hard that Prescott screamed in pain and fell back. Gasping for air, Cavanaugh rolled toward where he'd dropped the shotgun. But Prescott kicked his hands away and got to the shotgun first, pulling the trigger. Even with the earplugs Cavanaugh wore, the noise of the shell rocketing past him was overwhelming. The shell hit the arcade video game, the cylinder of buckshot exploding on impact, blowing the machine into pieces. Because Prescott was unfamiliar with the mechanics of the shotgun, he took too long to pump out what was left of the cartridge, giving Cavanaugh time to charge. The collision sent the two men crashing against already-shattered French doors. Plywood nailed to the doors' exterior gave way, Cavanaugh and Prescott smashing through onto the brightly lit terrace.

The floodlights hurt Cavanaugh's eyes as Prescott scrambled back and raised the shotgun.

"It won't do you any good." Cavanaugh's voice wavered, fear coursing through him. The strong, cool ocean breeze surged into his mouth and up his nostrils. "1 had time to reload only one shell before you crashed through the wall."

"Right," Prescott said.

Cavanaugh undipped the Emerson knife from the top of his wet suit and thumbed open its blade. He took several deep breaths. The clear air wouldn't take away the effects of the hormone, but it stopped them from getting worse.

"Dummy, you brought a knife to a gunfight," Prescott said.

"An old joke."

"But I'm the one laughing." Prescott pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

"School's back in session," Cavanaugh said.

As Prescott gaped at the empty shotgun, Cavanaugh removed the plugs from his ears. He heard sirens in the distance.

"How'd you like to learn about knife fighting?" Cavanaugh lunged with the knife.

Prescott jumped back.

"Part of it has to do with balance." Cavanaugh lunged again.

Prescott dodged to the side.

"Part of it has to do with dexterity." With dizzying, eye-blinking speed, Cavanaugh flicked the dark blade back and forth, up and down.

Prescott raised the shotgun as if about to swing a baseball bat.

"And part of it has to do with knowing which areas of the body to cut, depending on if you want a quick kill," Cavanaugh said, "or a slow one."

Prescott stood his ground. He inhaled violently, unintentionally warning that he was about to act. Then he charged.

As Prescott swung the shotgun, Cavanaugh ducked, nicked Prescott's right arm, and skipped back before Prescott could swing again.

Prescott looked shocked that his arm was bleeding.

The sirens wailed closer.

When Prescott glanced in their direction, Cavanaugh darted forward and nicked Prescott's other arm.

Furious, Prescott swung the shotgun again and gasped when Cavanaugh ducked it, then plunged the Emerson knife through the Kevlar vest into Prescott's stomach.

Weak-kneed, Prescott stumbled back in shock, staring down at the bloody knife Cavanaugh pulled from the bullet-resistant vest. Blood trickled from the bottom of the vest, crimson spreading down Prescott's sweatpants. Prescott's eyes widened in denial, communicating that he couldn't believe what had happened was possible.

"The wound's too shallow to kill you for a while," Cavanaugh said. "You've still got a lot of bleeding to do."

"How did…" Prescott's question was a gasp.

"Surely a smart guy like you can figure that out. The vest's made of polymer fibers. It's designed to resist only the blunt force of a bullet."

"The knife's sharp enough to slip past the fibers?"

"You pass the quiz." Cavanaugh jabbed again.

But Prescott had used the pause to regroup. Instead of lurching farther back, he surprised Cavanaugh by throwing the shotgun and charging, pinning Cavanaugh's arms to his side before Cavanaugh could do anything more than nick him again. With his hands clasped behind Cavanaugh's back, Prescott flexed his muscles, tightening, squeezing.

Cavanaugh felt as if metal coils were around him, contracting ever tighter. He couldn't move his chest, couldn't work his lungs. Staring at Prescott's frenzied eyes a couple of inches away from him, he suddenly felt light-headed. The floodlights on the terrace seemed to dim. His arms were so tight against his sides that he couldn't use the knife. He was so close to Prescott that he couldn't raise his knee to kick him in the groin.

In desperation, he hooked his right leg behind Prescott's left ankle and yanked. As Prescott toppled backward, Cavanaugh pushed, landing on him, knocking the wind from him.

Prescott's arms loosened just enough for Cavanaugh to pull free. They rolled away from each other and scrambled to their feet.

Cavanaugh jabbed with the knife.

Prescott dodged back.

Cavanaugh jabbed again.

Prescott dodged farther back, hit the waist-high wall, and went over.

"No!" Cavanaugh shouted.

Rushing, he grabbed Prescott's left arm just before he would have dropped out of sight.

Prescott dangled, his shoes scraping against the cliff. He could barely speak. "Please… don't… let… go."

"My shoulder still hurts from when you shot me." Cavanaugh stretched over the wall, clinging to him. "I'm not sure how long I can hold you."

Prescott jerked his other arm up and grabbed Cavanaugh's hands. Far below, the waves pounded the rocks. "Scared."

"I know," Cavanaugh said. "Thanks to your hormone, I'm so frightened, I'm not sure I can control my hands."

As if demonstrating the point, Prescott's blood-streaked arms began to slip through Cavanaugh's grasp. "For God's sake," Prescott said.

"Where's the antidote?"

"What?"

"Tell me where the antidote is."

Sirens blaring, cars stopped in front of the house. Doors slammed.

"Tell me where the antidote is. I'll let you live."

Prescott's arms slipped farther.

Cavanaugh's trembling hands weakened.

Prescott gasped.

Wincing, Cavanaugh gripped tighter. "Where's the antidote?"

"Put your hands where I can see them!" Rutherford yelled from the side of the house, aiming a pistol at Cavanaugh.

"I guess I'd better do what the man says." Cavanaugh made a motion as if to release his hands.

"No, wait!" Prescott said.

"The antidote! Where is it?"

"In the house!"

"Keep talking." Cavanaugh clung with all his might.

"Where I was hiding! Behind a monitor! In a red aerosol container!"

"It better not be bug spray, or I'll make you wish I'd dropped you!"

"Pull him up!" Rutherford rounded the corner, accompanied by FBI agents and police officers, all aiming pistols. A similarly intense group rounded the opposite corner, pistols and shotguns aimed.

Still hanging over the wall, clutching Prescott, Cavanaugh asked, "What's going to happen to him, John? Will the government make a deal?"

"Not anymore. Too many people know what happened last night. The newspapers and TV stations all along the coast are asking questions. So are the cable news channels, the networks, the East Coast papers. If the government bargained with a multiple killer in exchange for what he knows, there'd be even more questions. He'll be punished."

"Whatever it is, it won't be enough. Prescott, listen to me," Cavanaugh said, pulling him up. "In prison, you'd better let yourself go to pot again, because a buff guy like you will attract a lot of romantic attention from the inmates. Or maybe you'd better take a new batch of muscle stimulant and buff yourself up even more so you can fight off all their advances. You're just beginning to understand what fear is."