The Protector

11

Anger fought with grief. Too busy raging to fear for his life, wanting only to hammer Prescott's face until it was as unrecognizable as Duncan's, Cavanaugh scrambled back. After one last look at his friend, he ran in a crouch toward the living room. He couldn't go out the rear door. The passageway was like a shooting gallery, funneling bullets toward the target. As long as Prescott keeps his aim down, I don't have a chance, Cavanaugh thought. The only reason Cavanaugh was alive was that Duncan had been ahead of him and had taken almost the full force of the barrage.

Racing through the living room, Cavanaugh fought not to choke on the smoke. A round had hit an exposed area at the top of his left shoulder, between the vest's strap and his neck. As he charged bent over through the kitchen, his hand came away smeared with red from where he'd touched the meaty portion between his collarbone and his neck. Blood welled.

He dropped to his knees and gasped whatever relatively smoke-clear air was near the floor. Stung by the heat from the burning ceiling, he hurried to the munitions room. To leave the bunker, he needed to use the front exit, but as the camera in that passageway had shown, the burning trees and bushes out there blocked his way. The arsenal had a trapdoor that led to a concrete tunnel connected to an exit near the landing pad, but since that was the area where the fire was most intense, Cavanaugh wasn't sure he could use the tunnel as an exit.

Amid spreading smoke and heat, he shoved away the table on which the Kevlar vests had been piled. He kicked away a carpet, exposed the tunnel's trapdoor, and lifted the handle. Wafts of smoke drifted up, confirming his suspicion that the tunnel wouldn't protect him. If he tried to avoid the flames by climbing down there, the fire would suck out the tunnel's oxygen, asphyxiating him before it cooked him.

Cavanaugh's shoulder was stiff with greater pain. He felt lightheaded.

Need to stop bleeding. Need to do it fast. Cavanaugh thought. He lurched toward a shelf that contained several red-colored pouches: Pro Med trauma kits favored by emergency service organizations. Among other things, each kit contained a fist-sized gauze wad called a "blood stopper" because it could soak up as much as a pint of blood. But as the fire worsened, Cavanaugh didn't have time to open a kit, pull out a blood stopper, apply it, and tape it down.

All he had time for was the tape. Not surgical tape. Instead, he grabbed a roll of silver-colored tape that was next to the trauma kits and was considered part of the first-aid supplies. Duct tape. The gunfighter's friend. He couldn't count the number to times he'd seen wounds sealed with duct tape. He ripped his collar open and used his right sleeve to wipe blood from the meaty part where his shoulder met his neck. He tore off two sections of tape and pressed them crossways onto the wound. Then he pressed them harder, wincing from the pain but feeling the thick tape's sticky underside grip his skin and adhere to it.

Staying closer to the floor, Cavanaugh ran from the arsenal and into a farther smoke-filled room-a bathroom-where he climbed into the tub and turned on the shower, dousing his hair and his clothes. He soaked a towel and tied it around his head. Dripping, he scrambled into the kitchen, where he grabbed a fire extinguisher from under the sink. The bunker's lights flickered, then failed as he ran into Duncan's office and grabbed another fire extinguisher from a corner of the room.

Staggering now, he crossed the living room, which was lit only by flames, and managed to reach the corridor at the bunker's entrance. He set down the fire extinguishers and took a third one from a closet. As with the rear exit, the front door had a knob and a lever for a dead-bolt lock. After freeing the lock, he tested the knob and jerked his fingers back when he felt heat on it. Wavering, he tugged down his jacket sleeve and protected his hand as he again tried the knob, still feeling heat but no longer caring, desperate to escape from the bunker.

He pulled the door open and stumbled back, aware of the intense heat behind him but unable to resist the backward motion because of what faced him-hell.