The Protector

6

Cavanaugh had his handgun apart (in addition to gunpowder residue, he'd found rainwater on some of the interior parts) and was cleaning it on a towel on the living room's coffee table. Seeing movement, he looked up as Prescott entered.

"Did you get some sleep?" Cavanaugh asked.

Prescott nodded. "I surprised myself. I felt so tense, I expected just to keep lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling."

"Was the sleep any good?"

"When I woke up, I felt wonderful for a second. Then…" Prescott's voice dropped. He looked awkward in jeans and a denim shirt, evidently more accustomed to suits and ties. But, unlike the coveralls he'd worn on the helicopter, at least the clothes fit his heavy frame. Duncan prided himself on keeping various sizes at the bunker.

"Where is everybody?" Prescott asked.

Cavanaugh wiped gun oil on the Sig's various parts, which were laid out neatly on the towel in front of him. "Duncan's making phone calls. Tracy's in the control room."

"Control room?"

"Similar to what you had in the warehouse. This place is surrounded by security cameras. Tracy's watching the monitors and a radar screen that'll warn us if any aircraft are in the area. Roberto's maintaining the helicopter. Chad's cooking."

The smell of beef Stroganoff drifted pleasantly into the room.

"What about you?" Prescott surveyed the jeans and denim shirt that Cavanaugh now wore. "Were you able to rest?"

"I had a report to write and then some chores to do."

"Like this?" Prescott indicated the disassembled weapon.

"After action, the first thing I was trained to take care of is my equipment." Cavanaugh put the barrel into the slide, then secured the recoil spring and its guide rod into place. When he compressed the spring, he made sure to point it away from Prescott and himself, lest it catapult free and injure one of them.

"What did you mean, 'conditioned'?" Prescott asked.

Cavanaugh shook his head, confused.

Prescott continued. "When I told you that what you'd done to save me was one of the bravest things I'd ever seen, you said you're not brave-you're conditioned."

Cavanaugh slid the assembled slide mechanism onto the Sig's frame and secured it. He thought a moment. "People are brave when they're terrified but force themselves to risk their lives for somebody else."

Prescott nodded, listening intently.

"Why do you care about this?" Cavanaugh asked.

"My specialty is how the human brain functions, how it releases hormones and controls our behavior," Prescott said. "Epi-nephrine-what's commonly called adrenaline-is one of the hormones associated with fear. The speeding and contraction of the heart. The feeling of heat in the stomach. The jitteriness in the muscles. How someone like you overcomes the hormone's effects interests me."

"But I don't overcome it's effects."

"I don't understand."

"In Delta Force, I was trained to use those effects, to treat them as positives, instead of the negatives people associate with fear."

Prescott kept listening intently.

"Put a parachute on someone and tell that person to leap out of a plane at twenty thousand feet, he's going to be terrified. It's a potentially life-threatening activity and one that's totally unfamiliar- But train that person in small increments, teach him how to jump off increasingly high platforms into a swimming pool. Then teach him how to jump from even higher platforms wearing a bungee harness that simulates the feel of a parachute. Then show him how to jump from small planes at reasonable altitudes. Gradually increase the size and power of the planes and the height of the jump. By the time he leaps from that plane at twenty thousand feet, he's going to feel the same speeding and contraction of the heart, the same burning in the stomach, the same jitteriness in the muscles as before. This time, though, he's not terrified. He knows how to minimize the risk, and he's experienced hundreds of similar activities. What he feels instead of fear is the sharp focus of an athlete ready to spring into action. His adrenaline is affecting him the same way it always did. But his mind knows how to control it and to appreciate its constructive effects."

"Constructive?"

"The speeding and the contraction of the heart cause a greater output of blood to reach muscles and prepare them for extreme action. The faster breath rate causes more oxygen to get to muscles. The liver creates glucose, increasing the amount of sugar in the blood. At the same time, more fatty acids circulate. Both the sugar and the fatty acids become instant fuel, creating greater energy and stamina."

"Correct," Prescott said. "You had excellent instruction."

"I was trained to welcome adrenaline, to appreciate what it does to help keep me alive. I was also trained to think of gun-fights and car fights and all the rest of what happened today as being… not exactly normal, but I know what to expect. I know how to react. I can honestly say that not once today did I feel what's conventionally called fear."

Cavanaugh paused. Not once? he asked himself. What about the strange moment at the warehouse when I went up the stairs to meet Prescott?

"A powerful surge of adrenaline," Cavanaugh said, "but not fear, and that's why I don't think what 1 did today has anything to do with bravery. You're the one who's brave."

Prescott blinked. "Me? Brave? That's preposterous. For the past three weeks-and especially today-I've been terrified."

"That's my point," Cavanaugh said. "You can't be brave unless you're frightened to begin with. What you survived today was violent enough to unsettle even some experienced operators. I can only guess at the strength of character you had to muster to overcome the fear raging through you. You didn't freeze. You didn't panic, even though you must have felt that way. You promised me you'd be compliant, and you were. You're a prefect client."

Self-conscious, Prescott glanced down at the hardwood floor. Evidently, he wasn't used to compliments. "You might not feel afraid, but you still risk losing your life. For strangers. Why do you do that?"

Cavanaugh put on cotton gloves and began inserting 9-mm rounds into the pistol's magazine. In Manhattan, at the Warwick's bar, Jamie had asked a similar question. "Because it's what I know how to do and I'm good at it."

"No other reason?" Prescott asked.

"It's something I don't talk about with most people, because most people can't understand. Maybe you will because of your research into addiction."

"I'd like to try."

"Alcohol, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines. People can get addicted to a lot of things. Some special-ops soldiers can't bear a quiet everyday life after they leave the service. They become mercenaries or contract operatives for the CIA, or security specialists."

"Or protective agents?"

Cavanaugh spread his hands in a gesture of self-admission. "It's like a race-car driver who isn't happy unless he's on a track, jockeying for position with other cars at two hundred and thirty miles an hour. The rush of adrenaline. To get it, he has to put up with periods of intense inactivity before and after each race. That's the way most protection assignments are. Intensely inactive. Even the inactivity, the constant waiting for trouble, has a rush to it, though. As much as I hate to say this, I'm addicted."

"Hate to say it?"

"Any addiction's a weakness."

The room became silent.

From a door opposite the one that Prescott had used to enter the living room, Chad appeared, wearing a white apron that contrasted with his red hair and looked slightly ridiculous on so muscular a man. He tried to sound like a butler in the movies. "Dinnah is served."

Cavanaugh couldn't help grinning. "I'll get the team."

As Chad returned to the kitchen, Prescott looked puzzled at the cotton gloves Cavanaugh wore. "Why did you put gloves on when you loaded the…"

"Magazine." Cavanaugh shoved it into the Sig and worked the slide on top of the pistol, inserting a round in the firing chamber. He pushed the decocking lever. "This kind of handgun ejects empty cartridges after discharging the bullets. I don't want to leave my fingerprints behind for somebody to identify them."

"Another way of being invisible?"

"If I had a coat of arms, Be Invisible would be my motto."

"What you said about addiction being a weakness," Prescott said. "It isn't always. Some thing's can't be controlled."

"I believe in willpower," Cavanaugh said.

"Sometimes, that isn't enough. The substance I discovered, for example, is stronger than anyone's will."