The Protector

8

Wearing the gloves and coveralls they'd bought at the hardware store, Jamie sat behind the Taurus, attaching fog lamps to the back.

"If I could get down there and do that without pulling these stitches, I'd gladly take your place," Cavanaugh said.

"Somehow, you don't sound convincing. Fog lamps are supposed to be on the front. Why am I putting them here?"

"These aren't ordinary fog lamps. They're one-hundred-watt quartz halogens with a candlepower of four hundred and eighty thousand. We'll run the wires to a toggle switch we'll put on the dashboard. Once we get the lamps pointing up toward eye level, we can blind any driver coming after us."

He opened the hood and removed the air filter that had come with the Taurus. "The standard filter's okay, but this K and N improves pickup."

He used the plumber's tubing along with hose clamps to alter the intake system. "This'll get more air to the engine and add horsepower. I phoned a specialty car-parts store in Daytona Beach and ordered a high-speed computer chip to replace the one the car came with."

"Anything else we have to do?"

"Get heavy-duty shocks. Rig the ignition so we can start it easily if we don't have the key. But first, you have to crawl into the trunk," Cavanaugh said.

"What?"

"That wasn't a kinky proposal. We just need to get some measurements."

"Actually, doing it in the trunk sounds intriguing."

"Not with this shoulder."

"I wasn't planning to do it with your shoulder. What are the measurements for?"

"A half-inch plate of steel to stop bullets from going through the trunk and into the car."