The Protector

6

"Let's go shopping."

"Great idea," Jamie said.

"You do the driving." Cavanaugh's shoulder still felt stiff.

"Where to?"

He showed her addresses and a map from the phone book. "A hardware store, an auto-supply place, and a gun shop."

"Fabulous."

At the hardware store, they bought duct tape, a hammer, a screwdriver, electrical wire, a toggle switch, gloves, coveralls, a section of plumber's tubing, and an assortment of screws and clamps.

"What's all this stuff for?" "A better mousetrap," Cavanaugh said.

At the auto-supply place, they bought an air filter, two fog lights, and four chamois cloths.

Studying the cloths, Jamie asked, "We're going to wash the car? No, that can't be right. The dirtier the car, the less noticeable."

In the gun shop, Cavanaugh took her to a rack of gun belts. "It has to look like an ordinary belt but be sturdy enough to support the weight of the pistol. The strongest kind has two leather strips sewn together, with the grain on one strip going in the opposite direction from the other. The belt should fit so the stem on the buckle goes into the second hole. Which one looks good to you?"

Jamie chose soft-looking black with a square buckle that looked silver. "Goes with the studs on my pearl earrings."

"And for an accessory"-Cavanaugh turned to the bearded clerk-"do you have any Kydex holsters?" He referred to the sturdy plastic material that his own holster was made of. He liked Kydex because it wasn't affected by rain or perspiration and because it was thin enough to be easily concealed. "What kind of pistol?" Cavanaugh told him.

"Nice." The clerk reached under a glass counter. "Here's a new model from Fist, Inc." Slightly shorter than the length of Jamie's hand, the nonreflective matte-black holster had an open top, allowing the pistol to be drawn quickly, and a tension screw at the side, which kept the pistol secure. "They call it the 'Dave Spaulding.'"

Cavanaugh recognized the name of one of the nation's best firearms instructors.

"Anything else?"

"Two magazines for the Sig," Jamie said, "and a cleaning kit."

"And a hundred and twenty rounds of MagSafe 9-millimeter," Cavanaugh added. This type of ammunition had an epoxy resin tip with shotgun pellets embedded in it. When the tip struck a target, the resin fractured and released the pellets. The destructive force was considerable, with the added advantage that the tip and its pellets wouldn't go through a target and hit a bystander. As in any good gun store, the clerk didn't ask why the customer needed so much of a type of ammunition that was never used in target practice.

Noticing fishing equipment in back, Cavanaugh told him, "I could also use a dozen lead sinkers."