The Protector

7

The roar from the speaker was so loud that the entire room shook. On the screen, chunks of the Taurus crashed onto the concrete, smoke and fire swelling.

Prescott gaped.

A second explosion rocked the room. On a different monitor, the door through which Cavanaugh had entered the building blasted inward, smoke and flames filling the area at the bottom of the stairs. Three men rushed in, but although their hair was matted and their faces were beard-stubbled and filthy, their eyes had neither the blankness of the homeless nor the desperation of drug addicts. These men had eyes as alert as any gunfighter Cavanaugh had ever encountered.

"Is there another way out of here?"

Prescott kept staring at the screen, which showed one of the men aiming a pistol at the elevator door while the other two aimed pistols upward and stormed the stairs.

"Prescott?" Cavanaugh repeated, drawing his weapon.

Prescott kept staring at the screen.

Cavanaugh grabbed him, turned him, and shook him, "For Christ's sake, listen to me. Is there another way out of here?"

Instead of responding, Prescott lunged toward one of the electronic consoles and twisted a dial.

"What are you doing?" Cavanaugh asked.

Prescott stared toward a different screen.

The two men came into view on an upper portion of the stairs. They stopped and aimed upward, looking as if they thought getting in had been too easy, that there had to be traps in the building.

On the monitor that showed the entrance to the building, two other ragged men charged in through the fading smoke from the explosion. They, too, aimed pistols.

They started up the stairs, then paused as had the pair above them. Wary, they glanced behind and below them, seeming to sense danger.

"Have you got the stairwell booby-trapped, is that it?" Cavanaugh asked Prescott.

But on the screen, nothing exploded in the stairwell. No hidden guns went off. No flames erupted from the walls. Even so, the gunmen were obviously disturbed about something. Various monitors showed the man watching the elevator, the two that had just paused on the stairs, and the pair halfway up, who stared apprehensively toward the top as if they knew they were walking into a death trap.

Moisture dripped from their faces. At first, Cavanaugh thought it was from the rain they'd charged through.

Then he realized it was sweat.

One of the gunmen on the stairs suddenly started firing toward the upper level.

Abruptly, the other gunmen on the stairs did the same. At the bottom, the ragged figure watching the elevator kept looking behind him, as if he'd heard a threatening sound. He spun toward the blown-apart door and fired toward the rain.

"What the hell's gong on?" Cavanaugh asked.

Prescott kept twisting the dial, mumbling to himself, as if something had malfunctioned. "Yes." He spun toward Cavanaugh. "There's another way out of here."

Puzzled, Cavanaugh watched Prescott hurry toward the shelves of food. Then he frowned again at the monitors, seeing the gunmen continue firing up the stairs. Two furiously reloaded. The other pair spun to aim behind them. The man on the ground floor kept switching his aim between the elevator and the blown-open door.

A noise in the room distracted Cavanaugh, a scrape as Prescott slid the shelves to the left, revealing a door.

"Where does it lead?"

"The warehouse."

Recalling the army of crack addicts he'd seen when he'd arrived, Cavanaugh wondered how much he could count on Prescott to help. "Do you know how to handle that gun you pointed at me?"

"No."

Cavanaugh wasn't surprised. He picked up the.45 and found that Prescott had aimed it with the safety on. Worse, after Cavanaugh freed the safety and pulled back the slide half an inch, he saw that the firing chamber was empty. Releasing the magazine from the grip, he discovered that it did contain the usual seven rounds, however. After he shoved the magazine back into the grip, he racked a round into the firing chamber, ready for business.

"Do you have extra ammunition?"

"No."

Cavanaugh wasn't surprised about that, either. Because the.45 needed to be cocked before it could be fired, he left the hammer back and the safety on, a method preferred by most professionals. After shoving it under his belt, he drew his Sig.

He took one final look at the monitors, where he saw other ragged men rush into the stairwell, aiming pistols. Like the others, they suddenly hesitated, as if threatened by something the cameras didn't show in the stairway.

The image that most caught Cavanaugh's attention, however, was one in the middle, where a beard-stubbled man in grimy clothes stood outside, beyond the wreckage of the Taurus, which was still in flames despite the downpour. Drenched, the man held a metal tube that was about four feet long and looked suspiciously like an antitank rocket launcher.

"Prescott, is there a way to tell what's behind this door?"

"The top row of monitors. On the right."

The screen showed nothing but a shadowy metal catwalk.

"Open the door! Get out of the way!"

Wild-eyed, Prescott freed the lock and yanked the door open, veering toward the cover of the wall.

Cavanaugh aimed through the opening but saw nothing except the catwalk he'd observed on the monitor. The suspended metal walkway stretched into the shadows. The warehouse rumbled from the rain.

"Remember what I said about following orders?"

Prescott could barely speak. "Yes."

"Do you have a heart condition? Any serious illnesses that would keep you from moving fast?"

Prescott squeezed out a "No."

"Okay, when I run through this doorway, run after me! Stay close!"

On the middle screen, the drenched, grimy man outside finished arming the antitank rocket launcher. It was short enough that he could easily manage it as he raised it to his shoulder and sighted upward through the rain toward the room's bricked-in window.

"Now!" Cavanaugh said.

Charging through the door, then aiming down toward the shadows below the catwalk, he heard his urgent footsteps on the catwalk's metal. An instant later, he was relieved to hear Prescott's footsteps clattering close behind him.

Then all he heard was a ringing in his ears as the rocket exploded against the side of the building behind him. He felt the concussion, like hands slamming against his back, shoving him forward, and although he couldn't risk distracting himself by looking behind him, he imagined bricks flying into the room, smashing the monitors and electronic consoles.

The shock wave knocked him off balance, sending him sprawling onto the catwalk, his forehead banging against it as Prescott's heavy frame landed on him. The.45 under Ca-vanaugh's belt gouged into his side. For a moment, his vision turned gray.

The catwalk swayed.