The Protector

9

The sun cast long shadows. Cavanaugh's concentration made Karen's house seem bigger than the others-more so, the closer he came. There wasn't a lane behind it, only the backs of other houses-no place for him to try to sneak up from behind without attracting suspicion from the neighbors, who would probably phone the police about him. Thus his only choice was to go in through the front, as if visiting.

He noticed that despite the approaching dusk, there weren't any lights in the house. That could be a bad sign, or it could mean Karen wasn't at home, that a friend had come to drive her somewhere, to a movie perhaps. That would explain why Karen hadn't answered the phone.

But then, wouldn't Karen have left some lights on or have put them on timers so that the house wouldn't be dark when she returned? he wondered.

He reached the front of the house and proceeded up the sidewalk, passing the carefully mowed lawn on his way to the wide porch. At the sight of any suspicious movement beyond the front windows, he was prepared to draw his weapon and take cover.

Mounting the porch steps, he felt naked, but because he knew he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he didn't honor his promise to his dead friend, he forced himself to keep going. Putting his right hand under his sport coat, resting it on his pistol, he peered through the glass that formed the top third of the front door.

All he saw were the shadows of a corridor. On impulse, he turned the knob and pushed, surprised to find that the door swung open. Did it make sense that a woman in a wheelchair would leave her door unlocked?

He drew his pistol and eased inside. His wounded shoulder hurt as he raised his weapon with two hands and sighted along it, checking the dusky corridor, the stairs that flanked it, a room on the right and a room on the left.

Careful to minimize noise, he reached behind him and closed the door. Holding his breath, he listened but heard only silence. The house felt empty, but that impression meant nothing.

Where to start? Cavanaugh needed to think for only a moment before knowing the room he had to check first. He started slowly along the corridor, taking small steps that allowed him to be sure of his balance, all the while aiming with both hands. He focused his vision so that the wide notch in the sight over the pistol's hammer framed the post on top of the barrel. That post had a luminous tritium dot that glowed green in the dark. Invisible from in front of the weapon, the dot was vivid to Cavanaugh, and without hampering his night vision, it helped him line up the sights in the deepening shadows.

He passed a closed door on his right-the entrance to the elevator he'd told Jamie about-reached the end of the corridor, and scanned a kitchen that included a brick fireplace and a modern stove that imitated an old-fashioned cast-iron one. Turning to a door on his left, he stayed out of the line of fire, twisted the knob (hating the slight scrape of metal), and pulled.

The house became quiet again.

Remaining to the side, Cavanaugh inhaled-one, two, three-held his breath-one, two, three-and exhaled-one, two, three-working to control his heartbeat and his breath rate.

At once, he pivoted into view and pointed his weapon down the stairs to the basement. The shadows below were darker than in the kitchen but seemed to remain constant.

Knowing that Karen kept a flashlight in a drawer to the right of the corridor, Cavanaugh quietly pulled it out. He crouched and used his left hand to raise the flashlight above his head, pointing it down the stairs. When he turned on the light, anyone down there would be tempted to fire at its beam, assuming it was center of mass. Meanwhile, Cavanaugh would be able to shoot at the muzzle flash.

But no one fired.

Again, he listened. Again, the house became silent.

When he started down, he made a step creak. The sound sent a spark along his nerves. Inhale-one, two, three. Hold it-one, two, three. Exhale-one, two, three.

He continued down.

Unexpectedly, Cavanaugh's leg felt unsteady. Then his stomach began to feel jittery. Just athletic reflexes, getting ready for action, he told himself. Just my heart pounding out more blood.

But at the same time, a vaguely pungent smell pinched Cavanaugh's nostrils, seeming to make his heart race even faster. It was somehow familiar, but he couldn't remember where he'd encountered it before, and he didn't dare distract himself by trying to jog his memory. He had to concentrate on whatever he might find beyond his flashlight beam at the bottom of the stairs.

Halfway down, moving with greater care to keep his balance, he felt his legs become more rubbery. The pungent smell was a little stronger. His hands shook, making it difficult to sight along his weapon.

Adrenaline's my friend, he told himself. My legs are jittery because they're ready to spring into action. My heart's racing so my muscles will have plenty of blood. My stomach's hot because of all the chemical changes my body's going through, the glucose and fatty acids my liver's working to produce so I'll have instant energy. My lungs are heaving so I'll have plenty of oxygen when I need it.

He knew that what he felt was a so-called fight or flight response. But flight meant panic, and never once in his life, especially when he'd been in combat, had he ever felt the urge to flee.

Except now.

What's happening to me? Cavanaugh thought, reaching the bottom of the stairs. As the pungent smell made his nostrils contract even harder, a deep part of his mind squirmed and shouted, urging him to race back up the stairs, to get out of the house before…

Before what?

Inhale-one, two, three. Hold it-one, two, three. Exhale- one, two, three.

But Cavanaugh couldn't maintain the rhythm. No matter how strongly he tried, his breath rate became so rapid that it verged on being out of control. He felt light-headed. Flashlight wavering, he aimed it and his pistol along the dark corridor that matched the one above him. He remembered a light switch on his left, but he didn't turn it on, wanting the flashlight to blind anyone he might confront in the darkness. His wounded shoulder ached while he kept his left hand, the one with the flashlight, outstretched from his body so that if anyone shot at it, he wouldn't take the bullet in a vital area. Because his position was reversed relative to the upstairs corridor, his unsteady flashlight revealed that the closed elevator door was now on his left. Another closed door awaited beyond it-and two closed doors on his right.

The pungent smell increased with each unwilling step he took along the corridor. His stomach now felt so jittery that he feared he would vomit. His legs wanted to buckle. His body threatened to sink to the floor, his back to the wall, his knees to his chest, his arms around them, trembling.

Appalled by how his emotions wanted to betray him, he mentally cursed himself. Sweat soaking his clothes, he strained to remember every insult his instructors had barked at him, every command, every painfully acquired lesson.

Damn it, adrenaline's my friend!

Forcing his mind to focus on Karen, on the promise he'd made, Cavanaugh took another hesitant step along the dark corridor. Abruptly, he recalled why the pungent smell was vaguely familiar to him. The warehouse. He'd come across a less noticeable form of it in the abandoned building where Prescott had been hiding. When he'd sensed it on the stairs leading up to Prescott's hidey-hole, misgivings had tempted him not to go any farther and to return to his car instead. His uneasiness had been modest compared to the apprehension with which he now struggled. If not for his training and willpower, he wouldn't have been able to continue up the warehouse stairs.

Prescott!

The bastard's been here!

Cavanaugh smelled something else. Searching for its source, he angled his trembling flashlight toward the floor ahead of him. The farther door on the left led to a storage room. On the right, the farther door led to a bathroom. The one immediately on his right led to Karen's workroom, where she kept her digital cameras, her computers and special printers.

It was toward the bottom of the latter door that Cavanaugh tilted the flashlight, sickened by the sight of smoke leaking from its bottom and a slight flicker beyond it. He touched the doorknob, which felt slightly warm. A panicked part of his mind screamed, Run! But another part shouted, Karen! and made him shove the door in.

The fire almost blinded him. But that wasn't what Cavanaugh stared at. Flanked by flames that leapt among photographic equipment, computers, and printers, Karen faced him. Slumped in her wheelchair, the once pixielike redhead was motionless, her hands to her chest, her eyes as wide as any Cavanaugh had ever seen, her features contorted in horror. Her cheeks were so pale that her freckles appeared scarlet. She was only forty years old, but the twisted expression on her face made her look twice that.

Cavanaugh shoved the flashlight into a sport-coat pocket and rushed toward her, but the flames reached her before he could get near enough to pull her away. Not that it would have mattered if he'd reached her. Karen remained motionless in her wheelchair, unresponsive to the blaze that consumed her.

Dead.

But how? Cavanaugh thought, backing from the fire. He'd seen no injuries, no traumas to her face, no blood from a bullet wound, no bruising or swelling at her throat from having been choked. The fierce way she clutched her chest, it was as if she'd had a heart attack.

The flames strengthened. Stumbling back into the corridor, Cavanaugh saw that the strongest part of them came from a corner behind the photographic equipment, from the bottom of the wall, as if a short circuit had started a small fire that had accumulated behind the wall, until the flames gained enough power to burst through and fill the room. Prescott must have rigged something in a wall socket to make it seem that the fire had broken out accidentally. Cavanaugh hadn't smelled smoke when he'd entered the house because it had taken a while for the blaze to erupt from the wall. How Prescott loved to use fire as a weapon.

Lungs irritated by smoke, Cavanaugh raced along the corridor and charged up the stairs. Inexplicably, he felt an overwhelming urge to stop. The apprehension that had seized him earlier gripped him even more powerfully. His heart pounded faster than he'd ever felt it. His chest heaved so quickly that he feared his lungs would burst.

Fight or flight. He wanted nothing more than to run from the blaze, but while he hesitated on the stairs, almost paralyzed with alarm, he stared upward and at last understood why his instincts had warned him not to rush higher. The door at the top had been open when he'd descended.

Now it was closed.

Prescott had stayed to make certain the fire would spread. Cavanaugh was certain of that, just as he was certain that the door would be locked when he climbed to it. He coughed from smoke and felt heat behind him.

Get up there and break the door down! he thought.

And what if Prescott stays until the last minute? What if he still has Roberto's AR-15? He wants to make this look like an accident, but if he has to, he'll shoot.

Cavanaugh stumbled back down the stairs. Turning, he saw the blaze spread from Karen's workroom. He yanked open the elevator door, relieved to find that the burnished oak compartment was on the basement level. Like anyone whose legs were functional and who was in a hurry, Prescott had used the stairs.

Cavanaugh took the flashlight from his sport coat and frantically studied the elevator's ceiling, feeling a surge of hope when he saw the two-foot-square maintenance hatch that he recalled being there. Unlike elevators in today's commercial buildings, this compartment was modest in size, with a ceiling that Cavanaugh could touch.

He prayed that the noise from the fire was loud enough to muffle the sound he made when he lifted the hatch's cover and tilted it back. As the fire stretched toward the elevator, he pulled the door shut and closed the metal gate. No matter how much he tried to move the gate softly, its bars jangled, and all he could do was pray that the roar of the fire had muffled that sound also.

In the small enclosure, Cavanaugh's harsh, rapid breathing echoed loudly. Sweat poured off his face. Elevators. He hated elevators. He never knew when something would go wrong to stop them or what threat would face him when the door opened.

Smoke squeezed under the door and began to fill the compartment. In something like panic, an emotion that had never seized Cavanaugh until this moment, he pressed a button marked 2. If the fire had caused the house's electrical breaker box to trip off, if the elevator's motor didn't work…

He wanted to scream. The impulse wedged in his throat when the elevator jerked. Unlike high-speed office elevators, this one was designed to rise slowly. Shaking, he holstered his pistol. He reached up, set the flashlight on top of the hatch cover, then grabbed the hatch's rim and flexed his arms to raise himself.

Agony racked his left shoulder. The elevator vibrating as it inched higher, he heard a tear on his shoulder as the bandage yanked free from his skin. Pulling himself up, he felt warm liquid on his shoulder as his wound reopened.

But he didn't care about the blood, and he didn't care about his pain. All that mattered was getting out of the elevator. While it rose languidly higher, smoke continued to fill the compartment. Heat seeped in. Blood trickling down his chest, soaking his shirt and jacket, he felt a panic-driven surge of more strength than seemed possible. Never, not even on the most harrowing of missions, had he known visceral power of this magnitude. His pain became nothing. The weakness in his shoulder disappeared, replaced by impossible energy that urged him up through the opening as the floor that he'd been standing on began to smolder.

Breathing raspily Cavanaugh stared down through the opening, past the smoke, toward the glowing embers of the floor. At once, he heard a muffled pop-pop-pop, the crack of wood splitting, bullets piercing the elevator's first-floor door and slamming against the back wall. As the elevator continued rising, inching past the door, a more rapid pop-pop-pop sent more bullets into the compartment, chunks of wood bursting from the door.

The shots were too muted to be heard outside the house, which meant that Prescott had to be using a sound suppressor. But sound suppressors couldn't be purchased legally. Where had he managed to find one?

Where would I have found one? Cavanaugh thought.

The answer was immediate. If I had to, I'd empty a plastic water container and jam it over the barrel. But I've been trained to know these things. How would Prescott know?

That answer, too, was immediate. Prescott had yesterday and today to consider the problem, Cavanaugh thought. It's his business to understand physics. And one other thing: Maybe he's a natural at this.

As the elevator labored higher, the shooting stopped. Cavanaugh imagined Prescott listening to the elevator rise past him, then charging along the corridor toward the stairs that led to the next floor, his heavy footsteps pounding upward. Even overweight, Prescott could reach the next level before the elevator stopped there.

Above him, Cavanaugh heard wheels creaking, a motor working the cable that lifted the elevator. Below, the floor of the elevator burst into flames at the same time Cavanaugh heard another pop-pop-pop, bullets shattering the second-floor door, riddling the compartment. If Prescott had used a plastic bottle as a sound supressor, the bullets would have blasted it apart by now. He must have switched to something else, maybe wrapping a jacket around the mouth of the barrel. But the jacket would be quickly blown apart also, and Cavanaugh guessed that from now on Prescott's shots would be loud enough for someone outside to hear them.

The wheels stopped creaking. The motor ceased droning. The elevator quivered to a stop. The only sound became the crackle of flames on the elevator's floor. The rising heat was powerful enough that Cavanaugh had to move his face away from the opening.

Then another sound caught his attention, or maybe he only imagined it amid the crackling flames: the subtle scrape of hinges.

Cavanaugh shut off the flashlight. The elevator door was slowly being opened. Prescott would stand to the side. Cavanaugh was certain of that, certain that Prescott wouldn't frame himself in the doorway, wouldn't make himself a target. From the side, through the slightly opened door, Prescott would see the flames. Would he open the door farther, or would he take for granted that the bullets he'd shot into the elevator, combined with the fire in the compartment, would have done the job?

Cavanaugh's pounding heart shook his ribs. Feeling increased heat through the open hatch, he stared up toward a third elevator door, one that led to the attic. The elevator wasn't designed to rise that high, nor was the door up there intended to let passengers in and out. Half the size of the doors on the other levels, this one was intended to allow maintenance personnel into the top of the shaft to grease wheels and cables.

The door below suddenly flew all the way open. From a wary angle, Prescott would see that Cavanaugh's body wasn't crumpled on the floor. Because it wasn't possible for someone in the basement to cause the elevator to rise unless that person was inside the compartment with both the door and the gate closed, Prescott would take very little time to realize that Cavanaugh must have climbed up through the maintenance hatch. All Prescott needed to do was tilt his rifle upward toward the opening and-

Needing both hands free, Cavanaugh shoved the flashlight into his sport coat. His wounded shoulder throbbed as he grabbed the elevator cable and strained to pull himself up. At the level of the attic door, he clung to the cable with his right hand while he stretched his bleeding left arm toward the door. Desperate, he pushed it open, grabbed the edge of the doorjamb, almost screamed from the pain in his shoulder, and pulled himself into the dark attic.

The effort dislodged the flashlight from his pocket. A moment after it clattered, a roar of gunshots tore chunks from the elevator's ceiling. Bullets rammed into the top of the shaft as Cavanaugh rolled across the attic floor, jolting against what felt like a trunk. Frantic, he pushed the trunk toward the open door and shoved it into the elevator shaft. Its impact on the elevator's roof might trick Prescott into thinking that Cavanaugh had been hit and had fallen.

But those shots hadn't been muted by a sound suppressor.

The neighbors would have heard them and phoned the police, Cavanaugh thought.

It was the first mistake Prescott had made. Even if there hadn't been a fire, Prescott couldn't take the risk of staying much longer. With the fire, he had to leave immediately or be trapped. The neighbors had probably seen smoke coming from the house and called the fire department. Despite the noise from the fire, Cavanaugh thought he heard faintly approaching sirens: another reason for Prescott to want to leave as fast as he could.

Lying on the dusty floor, rubbing his back where he'd banged it, Cavanaugh gulped smoke-free air, although the air would soon change, he knew. To slow that from happening, he shut the elevator door, cutting off the flickering light in the shaft. He'd become so accustomed to the glare of the flames that he wasn't prepared for the almost-total darkness of the attic. At each end, the gray of dusk struggled through tiny windows. He couldn't possibly squeeze through them. The only way out was the attic door.

But would Prescott be waiting for him down there, ready to shoot? Beyond the windows, the distant sirens seemed closer. I've got to believe he decided he'd killed me and left, Cavanaugh thought. If I stay up here any longer, the fire'll trap me.

His night vision improved sufficiently for him to see bulky shapes that he guessed were large boxes. A human silhouette was a dressmaker's mannequin. He knew that the entrance to the attic was a swing-down door at the top of the second-floor stairs. Orienting himself, he calculated where that door would be. As smoke seeped from cracks in the elevator's wall, he crept around it. Feeling his way through dust, he suddenly touched folded-up wooden stairs that rested on the hinged door. Now all he had to do was push down and-

What about Prescott? What if I'm wrong and he's waiting for me?

Cavanaugh sweated. Behind him, he felt heat. He turned and saw flames through the cracks in the elevator's wall. He heard the approaching sirens.

Prescott's gone! He has to be gone!

Cavanaugh shoved down on the trapdoor.

Nothing happened.

He shoved harder. No result.

I must be pushing the wrong end, he thought. I'm pushing where the hinges are.

He scuttled to the other end and shoved down harder.

The door continued to remain in place.

Almost choking on dust that he'd dislodged, he stared from one end of the door to the other. The flames through the elevator walls were now bright enough to reveal that the first end of the door that he'd tried to shove down had in fact been the one without hinges. Those hinges showed clearly, mounted on parallel beams. Panicked, he scurried to the end without hinges and pressed down with all his strength, but the door refused to budge. There had to be a latch on the other side that prevented it from opening accidentally.

Smoke drifted over it.

He stomped down, trying to smash a hole in the trapdoor so he could reach down and free the latch.

The thick wood remained in place.

He spun and scanned the boxes, the mannequin, another trunk, anything that might help him. He bent over, coughing. Maybe 1 can unscrew the hinges, he thought. How? Where am I going to find a screwdriver or something to…

His eyes watered. Smoke from the shaft obscured the light from the flames in the elevator's compartment. I could fumble around up here until I drop, he thought.

Already, he was off balance from the lack of oxygen. No matter how much strength panic had given him, his body had reached a limit. If he inhaled more smoke…

Then don't breathe, he told himself.

His lungs protesting when he held his breath, he drew his handgun and aimed toward the wood next to a hinge. The barrel was five inches away from it, tilted so the bullet would plow under the hinge and damage the screws.

To keep flying splinters from his eyes, he turned his head before he pulled the trigger. The roar blasted his eardrums. Continuing to hold his breath, he readjusted his aim, this time toward another spot next to the hinge, and again looked away as he pulled the trigger. The recoil jerked his unsteady hands up. The roar made his ears ring.

His pistol held eight rounds in the magazine, one in the firing chamber. Afraid he'd pass out, he kept pulling the trigger, chunks of wood flying. He emptied the magazine, replaced it with a full one from the pouch on his belt, and fired eight more bullets, this time into the wood next to the other hinge. He replaced that magazine with the remaining full one on his pouch and continued to shoot at the hinges.

Saving his last round in case Prescott had stayed down there despite the fire, Cavanaugh holstered his pistol and stomped on the door. He heard wood protest… stomped again, heard wood shriek, the hinges separating from it… stomped it a third time, and fell, the trapdoor giving way, he and it plummeting toward the landing.

Dropping, he grabbed the edge of the opening, dangled, saw flames eating through the elevator door below him, and released his grip. Hitting the smoke-filled landing, he rolled. The impact sent a shock wave through him that punched air from his protesting lungs and compelled him to inhale smoke.

He wanted to reach a bedroom at the top of the stairs, but; when he pawed across the floor, he felt only open space and realized that he was headed in the wrong direction, about to tumble down stairs toward flames that blocked the front door. His eyes stinging, he turned to make his way on hands and knees through thick smoke toward the bedroom.

But his arms didn't want to work. His knees wouldn't push him forward. Lack of oxygen made him feel paralyzed. A blanket seemed to float down over him, smothering him.

Abruptly, hands grabbed him. He felt himself being dragged into shadows, away from the blaze consuming the elevator door. Something slammed: a door behind him, blocking the smoke. The hands grabbed him again, pulling him past a murky something that was probably a bed, toward an open door, onto the balcony that he'd been struggling to reach.

Outside, the glare of flames at ground-floor windows showed him the tense face above the hands that dragged him. Jamie. Her green eyes fiercely reflected the fire as she pulled him to the left side of the balcony, onto a railed-in, motorized platform that had allowed Karen to lower her wheelchair into the backyard.

He heard Jamie's strident breathing, then the sound of a motor as the platform descended. Sirens wailed.

The platform jerked to a stop. The fire must have burned the electrical wires, Cavanaugh realized. He peered over the edge, seeing ripples of reflected flames on the lawn five feet below him.

Jamie opened the platform's gate, squirmed over the side, and let go. She landed, then braced herself and reached up as Cavanaugh squirmed over. She grabbed him as he dropped, the two of them sprawling on the lawn.

The fire reached the back windows as the sirens wailed louder.

Jamie pulled Cavanaugh to his feet and tried to keep a distance from the burning house, guiding him along the right side.

"No," Cavanaugh murmured. "The back."

"What?"

"Backyard. Gate."

The relatively clear air chased the grogginess from his mind while he stumbled away from the house, heading through the backyard. Jamie kept pace with him, holding him up.

At the front of the house, firefighters shouted. Engines roared. Ladders and other equipment banged and rattled.

The backyard was spacious. Past two hulking trees, the shadows were thicker. The glare from the flames would soon reach this far, but for the moment, they had the cover of darkness as they came to a gap in a hedge. A high white wooden gate filled the space.

"Karen had it installed"-Cavanaugh breathed-"so the kid in the house behind hers"-he breathed again-"could bring a mower through and cut her lawn."

"What if it's locked?"

"We try climbing."

Abruptly, the gate swung open. A man, woman, and teenaged boy rushed to help them.

"What happened? Are you all right?"

"Visiting Karen," Cavanaugh managed to say. "Looks like… started behind a wall. Spread so fast. Barely got out."

"What about Karen?"

"In the basement." Cavanaugh kept stumbling across their backyard. His sport coat hid his pistol. "Couldn't get to…"

"We heard shots."

"Paint cans exploding. Tell the firefighters to try to get Karen."

Silhouetted by the burning house, the man and the teenager rushed into Karen's backyard.

The woman lingered.

"Save your house," Jamie said.

"What?"

"Spray water on your roof so sparks don't set it on fire."

The woman turned pale. She ran toward a hose connected to an outdoor tap.

As she sprayed water toward her roof, neighbors crowded into the backyard, shoving, ignoring Cavanaugh and Jamie, trying to see the blaze.