Double Jeopardy

70

8:43 P.M.

TRAVIS GRABBED THE GUARD by the back of his neck and shook him. He still didn’t rouse.

“Nice job you did on him,” Henderson commented. “He’s out cold.”

“That had more to do with the solidity of the control panel than the strength of my fists.” He shook the man again. No reaction.

“Let me try,” Curran said. He stood behind the guard, wrapped his arms under the man’s shoulders and around his neck, then jerked him violently upward. Travis heard the guard’s neck crack. His eyes shot open.

“Who the fuck—” The guard looked around furiously, then groaned. His head fell to one side.

Curran lifted the man’s head and motioned for Travis to begin the inquisition. Travis searched back in the far recesses of his mind to his police days. Interrogation 101. Play on the suspect’s insecurity. Make him uneasy, unsure. Don’t let him know what you want. Let him wonder—

Oh, the hell with it. “Where’s your security card? Punk,” he added for dramatic effect.

The man stared at Travis, still semidazed. “My what?”

“Your entrance card. The little magnetic gizmo you stick in the box at the door so you can get into the house.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, right. Hold him tight, Curran.”

Travis proceeded to search him. He followed standard police procedure; it was all coming back to him. He patted down the man’s outer body, then came up on the inside of his legs and arms. In the man’s shirt pocket, he found a piece of plastic about the size of a credit card with an electromagnetic strip on the back. “This it?”

Curran glanced at the card. “Probably. Let’s sneak up to the house and give it a try.”

The man sneered. “It won’t work, you assholes.”

“Did you hear that?” Travis said. “He says it won’t work.”

“What did you expect him to say? Be my guest?” Curran tightened his grip around the man’s neck. “So why won’t it work, chump?”

The man grimaced. “You ain’t as smart as you think you are.”

“I think he’s referring to the voiceprint ID,” Cavanaugh suggested. The man’s immediate reaction told them she was right. “I’ve seen this equipment in operation before. You pop in the card and the machine asks you a few questions. Your voiceprint has to match the one the machine has on file.”

“If he thinks that’s going to stop us, he’s in for a big surprise,” Curran said. In the blink of an eye, he released his grip around the man’s neck, whirled him around, and shoved him back against the guardpost. He held two fingers about an inch from each of the man’s eyeballs.

“You see these fingers?” Curran asked. His voice was soft but dark; his expression was menacing. “Do you know how long it would take me to avulse your eyeballs? In case you don’t know, that means to pop them out of their sockets.”

The man shook his head slowly. He was staring at the two threatening fingers.

“About three seconds,” Curran answered. “Believe me. I’ve done it before.”

The guard’s head was trembling. “You’re a fuckin’ lunatic.”

“You know what? You’re right.” An evil leer crossed from one end of Curran’s face to the other, transforming his boyish features into an eerie satanic mask. He rested his fingertips on the man’s eyelids. “Two seconds left.”

The guard’s entire body shook, but he kept his mouth shut.

Curran pressed down on his eyelids. “One second left. And then—pop! go the eyeballs.”

“Chrissake, don’t do it!” The man’s chest was heaving; he was on the verge of crying. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

“Good.” Curran whipped him around again. “I’m going to tie you up now. Then we’ll lead you to the front entrance to the house. We’ll stick your card in the slot, and then you’re going to say whatever it is you’re supposed to say. You’re not going to scream or yell for help. You might bring help, but not in less than three seconds. If you so much as peep, you may as well start shopping for a Seeing Eye dog. Understand?”

The man nodded nervously. Sweat dripped down both cheeks.

“By the way,” Curran asked the guard, “has anyone else come calling today?”

“Yeah. Some other guy. I was told to let him in. ’Bout an hour ago.”

“Who was he?”

“I don’t know his name. Honest I don’t.”

“Medium-size, dark-haired guy? Ugly face?”

“That’s him.”

Curran glanced at Travis. “Your client’s presence is confirmed.” Curran wrapped a heavy cord around the man’s wrists and shoved him toward the house. The others followed behind, careful to stay near the trees and in shadows.

Travis lagged behind. “Henderson,” he whispered, “you’re being awfully quiet.”

“How long have you known this Curran fellow?”

“Oh, about half an hour longer than we’ve known you,” Travis replied. “Why?”

“He seems … dangerous. Like a loose cannon. I wonder if we should be hanging so close to him.”

Cavanaugh overheard. “What do you mean?”

“He’s a lightning rod. Maybe we should let him stay well ahead of us. Deflect fire.”

“I think we have to all stay together or we’re history,” Travis said.

The man nodded thoughtfully without comment.

The machine resembled an automated bank teller. Curran inserted the plastic card into the slot just beneath a small screen. The screen glowed blue; then the words State Your Name appeared in white.

Curran shoved the guard forward. “Elmer Thaddeus Brown,” the man said.

Curran and Travis exchanged a look. Elmer?

The next screen asked for his job title. “Chief of security,” the man replied.

The third and final screen read: Password.

The guard hesitated. Curran gently reached forward and placed a finger beneath each eyeball.

“Elcon,” he spat out.

Elcon? Travis thought. Yet another connection between that corporation and the mob.

The blue screen disappeared, and a clicking noise told them the front door was open. Cautiously, they stepped inside. Once everyone was in, Curran closed the door behind them.

“Sorry about this,” Curran told the guard, “but we need to reduce our risks.” He reared back his fist.

Just before his hand connected with Elmer’s face, Elmer ducked and rushed Curran. Curran was caught off guard; he fell backward against a sofa. Elmer’s hands were still tied behind his back, but he managed to scramble toward the staircase. “Jack! Marty! Trouble!”

“Damn!” Travis raced forward and grabbed Elmer by his tied hands. Using the man’s own momentum against him, he swung him around into a brick fireplace. Without the use of his hands, Elmer had no way to stop himself. He hit the bricks headfirst, then fell to the floor.

Barely a second later three men came rushing down the stairs. They were large, muscular types; there could be little doubt about their function in the household.

Before Cavanaugh could get out of the way, one of the men leaped over the banister, knocked her gun out of her hands, and shoved her down onto the carpet. Travis tried to intervene, but was stopped by another of the men, a tall, blond Nordic-looking behemoth. The blond took a swing at Travis’s head. Travis ducked, but the man’s fist still clipped him.

Out of the corner of his eye, Travis saw that Curran was having similar problems. The third bodyguard had him pinned against the wall, a large handgun wedged under his chin. Curran might know a hundred and five ways to kill a man, but he wasn’t going to have a chance to implement any of them unless he got out of that chokehold.

He heard Cavanaugh scream, but couldn’t see what was happening to her. A fist impacting upon his stomach reminded Travis that he had problems of his own. The blond knocked the breath out of him, and he hadn’t the slightest idea where he had dropped his gun. The blond, however, had no such difficulty. He reached behind his back and withdrew a small revolver.

Travis grabbed the blond’s arm and flung it up into the air. The gun was poised directly above their heads. Travis locked his arms and held on for dear life. Suddenly the blond shifted his weight and brought the butt of the gun down in a straight vertical line—on top of Travis’s head.

He cried out. That hurt. He felt as if the blond had put an inch-deep gash in his skull. His eyes were watering, clouding over. He tried to tackle him, but the blond knocked him back with a swift boot to the chest. Travis fell to his knees.

Travis saw a shimmery outline of the blond leveling the gun at his face. He realized he was too dazed, too drained, and too far away to do a thing about it.

He heard a gunshot ring out. He was unsure what had happened at first; then he saw the blond fall face forward onto the carpet.

He heard another shot ring out. Behind him, Cavanaugh was lying on the floor while one of the assailants stood over her with a combat boot pinning her neck. The man’s grip loosened, then he, too, crumpled to the floor. His wound leaked blood onto the white carpet.

Curran was still fighting. Travis ran to help, but saw that Curran had things under control. He had managed to reverse positions with his attacker and was slamming the upper half of his head repeatedly against the brick fireplace. Even Curran was startled, though, when the next gunshot rang out. The bullet caught the man in the neck; he was dead instantly.

“What the—” Curran whirled around, trying to figure out what had happened. “Henderson!”

He was standing by the front door, a smoking gun in his hand.

“You killed them!” Travis said.

“Yeah, before they killed you.”

“Curran would’ve taken his man out soon.”

“Maybe. We couldn’t afford the risk. Or the delay.”

“Couldn’t you have … winged them or something?”

He ran the gun muzzle down the scar on his face. “The situation was getting out of control.”

“But surely—”

“Don’t give me a lot of crap, Byrne. Another second and you and the girl would’ve been dead meat.”

Travis bit his tongue. The man probably had saved his life. And this would be a poor time to spread dissension in the ranks. “How are you, Cavanaugh?”

Cavanaugh rubbed her neck. The imprint of her attacker’s boot was still visible, outlined in red. “Better than I was a few moments ago. Thanks, Henderson.”

“At least someone approves,” he grumbled.

“I didn’t say that,” Cavanaugh replied. “Don’t they show you how to throw a punch at Quantico?”

“My evaluation of the situation was—”

“I’m surprised the FBI allows you to just summarily execute people.”

“I’m authorized to take all necessary action in emergency situations.”

“Still, that was just cold-blooded—”

“Cut him some slack!” Curran barked. “It was a tense situation. He did the best he could. He saved your butts.”

“Yeah, although—”

“We don’t have time for this. Jack and Moroconi could be crawling out the fire escape. Let’s go upstairs.”

Travis still didn’t like it. Now a few more unnecessary deaths would be tallied under his name. But Curran was right—they had other tasks that took immediate precedence. Still, he didn’t want this loose cannon near Moroconi. At least not until Travis had a chance to talk to him.

“Look, Henderson,” Travis said, “we need someone to guard our rear. More thugs could show up at any moment. Reinforcements. Why don’t you take a position behind the trees outside the front door? If anyone else shows up, you can come in behind them.”

He frowned, obviously displeased.

“Not a bad idea,” Curran echoed. “We don’t all need to be upstairs with Moroconi. Do you mind?”

He took a long time before answering. “If that’s what you want me to do, that’s what I’ll do.”

“Good.”

Grudgingly, he walked out the door to find a safe position among the trees.

Travis recovered his multistrike weapon from where he had dropped it on the carpet. “All right, team. Let’s go meet the master of the house.”

Kramer chuckled as he lit a cigarette and pressed it between his lips. Who would’ve thought that shit-for-brains Curran would be the one to come to his defense? He was the only one who had acted remotely suspicious of him before, and now he’d bailed him out of a tight spot.

It pained Kramer to be associated with such bleeding-heart amateurs, even if he was just waiting for a chance to rub them all out. What fucking idiots. Bursting into a room they knew would be guarded and then trying to slug it out with a bunch of professional bodyguards. If it had been up to him, he would’ve used firebombs, would’ve blown the entire house sky high. And he would’ve been safely tucked away in the forest, watching the beautiful billows of fire illuminate the hillside.

Christ—he had come with them hoping to kill Byrne and he had ended up saving the man’s life! But it was too soon. He wanted Moroconi, and he couldn’t blow away Byrne until he was certain he had him. Besides, he had the persistent feeling that Curran was watching him, even as he fought.

He wasn’t thrilled about drawing guard duty, but if he had protested too much, they would’ve become suspicious. Actually, he reflected, this might work out for the best. Let those idiots find Moroconi, do all the risky stuff—and then deliver Moroconi into his hands. Yes, he realized, that was by far the most sensible plan of action.

After all, he could kill them anytime.