Double Jeopardy

64

5:45 P.M.

WHEN TRAVIS AWOKE, HE was lying faceup, staring at the ceiling. He wasn’t sure where he was. The only things he could be certain of were that he wasn’t in heaven and he wasn’t in the overheated hot tub.

He touched his face; it felt tender and raw. Probably swollen and burned, too, but at least all the parts still seemed to function.

He rolled slightly to one side, sending shooting pains up and down his abdomen. Never mind, he thought to himself. I’m not drowning, and I’m not being burned alive. Maybe I’ll just lie here for a moment.

He heard a soft rhythmic sound behind him—steady breathing. Twisting his head, he saw Cavanaugh hunched over the man he had dragged out of the hot tub. And—what the hell? She was kissing him!

He rolled his eyes to the back of his head. What an idiot he was sometimes. She wasn’t kissing him—she was giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. And it was working. Travis could see water spewing out of the man’s mouth, and could see his arms and legs beginning to move.

An intense aching radiated through Travis’s skull, reminding him that he’d been clubbed over the head. Cavanaugh must’ve hauled him out of the tub. Cavanaugh seemed to have everything under control. He’d just remain still and try to pull himself together. Who knew—maybe he could get some mouth-to-mouth for himself.

About half an hour later Mario sat on a beanbag chair in the rec room hunched over a half-filled brandy snifter. Travis pressed a fully filled ice pack to his forehead. Cavanaugh stood between them and listened.

“Moroconi hates me,” Mario murmured. He spoke in short, breathy bursts, a few syllables at a time. “He left me to die. Must’ve clubbed you on his way out.”

“What did he want?” Cavanaugh asked.

“He wanted an address. One he couldn’t find on the list.”

“There it is again,” Travis said. “That damn list that everyone wants. What is it?”

“It’s a list of squealers who were given new identities by the Federal Witness Relocation Program. Once the witnesses are relocated, there are supposed to be no traces of their former lives. No trail to be followed. But someone in Bureau 99 kept a list.”

“Why?”

Mario inhaled the brandy fumes. “Don’t ask me. Some overzealous bureaucrat, probably. Maybe it was necessary to forward payments, to make periodic checks. All I know is that the list exists. And Moroconi got it.”

“Why did he want it?”

“He’s looking for someone. Someone who turned state’s evidence four years ago. Jack.” He paused. “Moroconi wants revenge against Jack.”

“Wasn’t Jack on the list?”

“He was, but the information was incorrect.” Mario swirled the brandy around his mouth and down his throat, savoring the artificial comfort. “The FBI are not the only ones who know how to relocate.”

“Did Moroconi get the man’s address from you?”

Mario’s eyes lowered. “I had no choice.”

“Then give it to me, too,” Travis said. “I have to find him. It’s my only hope.”

“I can’t do that.”

“You gave it to Moroconi!”

“Because I had to. I don’t want to do any more damage than has already been done.”

“If you don’t give me the address,” Travis barked, “I won’t catch Moroconi. He’ll remain free.” He paused, allowing the weight of his words to sink into Mario’s brain. “And when he finds out you’re still alive, he’ll be back here for you.”

This threat obviously caused Mario to reconsider, but he remained silent.

“Moreover, if you don’t give me the address right now,” Travis added, “I’m going to sink your fat butt back in the hot tub. And goose up the temperature. So talk!”

A shudder passed through Mario’s body. “The address is beneath the blotter on my desk in the den upstairs. He lives about a hundred miles from here, not too far from Austin. But you’ll never get in. He’s got guards posted who stop everyone who comes in or goes out. He’s got high-tech security equipment. And always a couple of bodyguards. At least.”

“One problem at a time,” Travis muttered. “Just give us—”

Travis was cut off by the ever-more-familiar sound of a bullet whistling overhead. He hadn’t heard the gun fire; that made it all the more disturbing. He grabbed Mario by the neck and slammed him down on the carpet. Cavanaugh followed suit. He heard another bullet sail past.

“Where is he?” Cavanaugh mouthed.

Travis shook his head. “Outside the door, I think.”

Travis pointed to their immediate right, and together they quickly crawled behind the pool table. Unfortunately, the table stood three feet off the ground. All the sniper had to do was crouch and—

Another whizzing sound. Travis heard a bullet smash into a leg of the pool table.

“This won’t cut it,” he whispered.

“What can we do?” Cavanaugh asked.

“Why are you asking me? I don’t know.”

“You’re the ex-cop. What would a cop do?”

Travis grimaced. He heard the soft patter of footsteps on the carpet. Whoever was firing at them was moving closer. “Follow my lead.” He rose up on his knees, pressed a shoulder against the pool table, and shoved. Good—the top separated from the legs, and the legs were screwed to the floor.

Cavanaugh lent her shoulder to the cause. Travis heaved and the tabletop fell forward off its base with a crash. Billiard balls and slate smashed onto the floor. The front legs propped the tabletop up at a forty-five-degree angle, creating a ten-foot-wide shield.

“How’s that for cover?” Travis murmured.

“Better,” Cavanaugh replied. “At least now he’ll have to move away from the door.”

“Unfortunately that doesn’t change the fundamental fact that he’s armed and I’m not. What happened to my gun?”

Cavanaugh shrugged. “I know I set mine down when I started mouth-to-mouth on Mario.”

“Great.”

Mario relaxed the expression of terror plastered across his face long enough to speak. “It’s by the hot tub.”

Travis stared at the hot tub—about twenty very exposed feet to his right. He didn’t see his multistrike weapon. Must be on the other side. The side closest to the door, natch.

“I’m going to make a dive for the hot tub, Cavanaugh. Cover me.”

“Cover you? With what?”

“Use your imagination.”

Cavanaugh clenched her teeth and mumbled something he couldn’t understand. He figured it was just as well. He crouched down near the end of the table and prepared to spring out.

He glanced back over his shoulder. “I’m ready.”

He was startled to see Cavanaugh grit her teeth and grab a billiard ball. “Take this, you sorry son of a bitch!” she shouted. She reared over the tabletop and hurled the ball toward the door.

Travis heard the projectile clatter and ricochet around some exercise equipment, and heard their assailant drop to the floor. Good enough. He dove away from the table and scrambled toward the hot tub. He landed on his hands and executed a somersault that brought him right beside his gun. Not bad for a fat ex-cop. He grabbed his gun and scrambled back to the safer side of the hot tub, hugging the carpet.

Travis heard another bullet zoom over his head, this one much closer than before. Much too close for comfort. He flattened himself and tried to figure out what he was going to do next.

He heard a mechanical grinding sound coming from the door. No bullets followed. Something was wrong with their assailant’s gun.

From his prone position, Travis saw Cavanaugh cautiously peer over the top of the pool table, “His gun is jammed!” she shouted. “Go!”

Travis took her at her word. He sprang to his feet, cocked the hammer back, aimed the barrel at the stocking-capped figure in the doorway, and …

And he could not pull the trigger.

“Goddamn it,” Cavanaugh yelled. “Fire!”

He couldn’t do it. His hands trembled, his fingers refused to move. He stared at the man in the doorway, fully aware that at any second he might clear the action and fire that gun. It didn’t help. He still couldn’t do it.

“Travis—do something!”

The man in the stocking cap threw down his gun, pulled a long, curved knife out of his belt, and ran toward Travis. Travis hurled his weapon at the man’s head. While the man ducked, Travis rushed him. Travis hit him around the waist and sent him careening backward. The man hit the wall, lurched away in the opposite direction, then tumbled backward into the boiling hot tub. He screamed.

The man beat his arms furiously, trying desperately to get out of the water. Travis knocked the knife out of his hand, then held him down by the shoulders. Cavanaugh ran out from behind the pool table, grabbed her gun, and trained it on the man in the tub. “Don’t kill him,” she said.

“I’m not letting him out just so he can come after us again,” Travis grunted. “As long as he’s fighting me, he stays in the water.”

As if on cue, the man stopped struggling. Travis grabbed him behind the shoulders and placed a half Nelson lock around his neck. Once he was sure he had the man under control, he hauled him out of the water. Cavanaugh kept her gun trained on his skull the whole time.

The man’s face was red and flushed and he looked as if he hurt. “Look at all this high-tech equipment he’s packing,” Cavanaugh said. She searched him, then systematically removed every gadget and weapon he carried, much of it now waterlogged and ruined. “This is the same man who attacked me at the library.”

“Persistent son of a bitch,” Travis muttered.

Cavanaugh ripped the man’s stocking cap off his head. Travis’s eyes widened.

It was Curran McKenzie. Mary Ann McKenzie’s brother.