The Protector

4

"Jamie!"

She'd been jerked against her seat when the car flipped and fell. Now she groaned beside him.

Stunned, Cavanaugh tried to clear his mind. As the Taurus began to submerge, the pressure of the water against the side made it impossible to open the door until the car was filled with water and the pressure was equalized. During the chase, he'd managed to lower the windows a few inches. Now he touched the button that would take the driver's window down all the way. Hoping to shove Jamie through the gap and then go after her, he was dismayed when the window didn't budge.

Cold water soaked his shoes as he undipped the Emerson knife from inside his pants pocket and slammed its butt against the safety glass on the driver's side, shattering the middle of the window into pellets. He pounded the knife's butt against the rest of the window, trying to clear its edges, when a dark shape made him stop. Moonlight, in combination with the Taurus's fading headlights, revealed that the dark shape was a boulder.

Turning toward the passenger window, Cavanaugh saw a boulder on that side also. The Taurus had landed upright in the water in a trough between shelves of rock. On each side, there was no way to get out through a broken window, no matter if in front or back.

Kick through the front windshield, Cavanaugh thought. Instantly he became aware that when the car had rolled, its roof had been pushed down, crushing the windshield and the window over the trunk, making the space too narrow for him to squeeze Jamie through.

The cold water now reached Cavanaugh's knees. As the Taurus continued sinking, the headlights and the lights on the dashboard flickered. Trembling from the cold, Cavanaugh pulled Jamie into an upright position, trying to give her air for as long as possible. His feet felt numb.

Doors. Blocked by boulders.

Windows. Can't get through them.

The roof.

Cavanaugh thumbed the Emerson knife open, slashed at the roof's liner, and yanked it down. The roof was buckled inward. Its support struts had widened, creating enough space for someone to squeeze through, provided a gap could be created in the roof itself.

Gripping the knife so its blade pointed in the same direction as his thumb, Cavanaugh stabbed upward into the metal. Among operators, the Emerson knife had a worldwide reputation as a hard-use tool. Its edge was razor-sharp and chisel-ground, its metal astonishingly strong, its point engineered for maximum durability. Its serrations were designed to cut along metal. It could pierce a car door, and Cavanaugh knew of instances in which it had struck through the fibers of a Kevlar vest.

Indeed, its sharpness, its strength, and the force with which he hit the roof caused the blade to go through. He sawed, withdrew the knife, pounded it into the roof again, sawed, and withdrew the knife, straining to cut a hole. As the cold water reached his groin, he punched the knife into the roof again and again, the impact of the blows jarring his arm and his shoulder, radiating through his body.

He jabbed the knife through the roof yet again, groaning from the pain it caused him. Alarmed, he saw that Jamie had listed sideways, drooping toward the rising water, which was now at his stomach. In a frenzy, he propped her upright again, then pounded the knife at the roof, straining to make a circle. His breath echoed loudly. He saw its vapor. The water reached his chest. Again, he stabbed the knife toward the roof, but the resistance of the water robbed him of strength, and this time the blade didn't pierce the metal.

The lights went out. In darkness, as the Taurus sank farther, Cavanaugh inwardly screamed. With the water restricting his movements and without lights to see where he was cutting, he would never be able to get through the roof. He felt Jamie slide sideways toward the water and again propped her up. He touched her face. Close to tears, he thought, I'm sorry. If I'd loved you enough, if I'd listened, we'd be home right now. I didn't protect you well enough. So sorry.

As the water rose past Cavanaugh's nipples, a fierce anger possessed him. God help me, there has to be a-

Immediately, he pushed the trunk-release button. He kicked off his shoes, squirmed over the seat, and splashed into the back. Trembling from the cold, he yanked away the seat cover and drove the Emerson knife into the back support, hacking at it. Tearing, ripping, he widened a hole and shoved at the steel plate that he'd put against the rear of the trunk. Then he took a deep breath and swam underwater into the submerged trunk. The weight of the water had kept the trunk from opening. He pushed at the hatch, but although he'd used the trunk-release button, nothing happened. The trunk must have been damaged when the car rolled, he realized. He pushed harder. Lungs aching, he twisted the knife against the latch, pried, levered, and felt something give. Shoving up with his back, he forced the lid up.

Breathe. Need to breathe. Desperate, he swam back through the hole in the rear seat, reached the car's interior, and raised his head, only to bump it in the darkness. Exhaling, his lungs made a roaring sound, amplified by the confined space. He frantically estimated that there were barely five inches between the rising water and the roof. Without pause, he inhaled as much air as he could, then plunged under the water, groping into the front seat, finding Jamie and raising her into the airspace.

Her moan filled him with a hope. You can't moan if you're not breathing. He pulled off her shoes. Then he turned her to face him, opened her battered mouth, and breathed into it, trying to fill her lungs, to give her enough air that she could survive what he was now forced to do, which was to pull her over the seat and swim with her through the hole in the backseat. He tugged her into the trunk, braced his feet against the floor, and shoved upward, clearing the open lid, fighting to rise with the current.

He had a powerless, disorienting sensation of being buffeted this way and that.

One thousand.

Two thousand.

Three thousand.

Four thousand.

He seemed to hear explosions as he and Jamie broke through the surface-the impact of waves hitting rocks. As Jamie gasped, he gripped her around the shoulders and kicked through the water, using his free arm to fight to swim.

A flashlight's glare almost blinded him. It was aimed from a bridge about twenty feet above him, from near the bluff over which the Taurus had fallen. Prescott, Cavanaugh thought. Now he's going to finish it. Struggling to swim toward boulders, Cavanaugh waited for the bullet he would never feel, which would blow his skull apart. He knew that Jamie would drown, if Prescott didn't shoot her first. Their corpses would be caught in the current and swept out to sea.

Close. We came so close.

"You son of a bitch!" Cavanaugh managed to yell.

"What? I can't hear you!" a man's voice yelled back, not Prescott's. "Try to reach those rocks!"

Cavanaugh didn't have the strength to answer.

The flashlight kept blinding him. "When I saw the broken guardrail, I stopped and spotted your car going under! I called the police! Swim closer! I've got a rope in my truck!"