The Protector

4

After four days, Interstate 80 brought them to San Francisco. They followed the Pacific Coast Highway south to Carmel and spent the night in a motel. But Cavanaugh had trouble sleeping, too preoccupied with what needed to be done.

"Where do you want to look first?" Jamie asked the next morning over a ham and cheese omelette in the motel's diner.

Cavanaugh had only coffee. "How can you eat so much and stay so thin?"

"I've got a high metabolism. Besides, when I'm worried, I need to eat."

"We're safe for the moment."

"That's not what I mean." They were at a corner table, their backs to a wall. The nearest tables were empty. A television droned behind the counter. Even so, she lowered her voice. "You're not being hunted any longer. This isn't following orders in combat. This isn't self-defense. It isn't protecting a client. You're the hunter now. If you get what you want, I'm worried about how it'll change you."

"Prescott raised a similar issue."

Jamie looked puzzled.

"After I rescued him from the warehouse, we nearly got trapped at a shopping mall. The team chasing us left a car outside. I managed to sneak up on it and shout to its driver to run away. The driver was too startled to move. I had to shoot through the car's roof before he got his legs to work. Later, Prescott asked me why I hadn't just killed the man."

"And what did you answer?"

"That the man hadn't given me a reason, that I was a protector, not a…"

Jamie didn't need to say anything further to make her point.

"I wonder if Prescott's counting on that," Cavanaugh said bitterly. "He can't be sure I died in the fire at Karen's house. I wonder if the son of a bitch is betting that my personality's essentially defensive, that I won't come after him for betraying me and my friends."

Jamie stayed silent.

"He'll have changed his appearance," Cavanaugh said. "He'll probably wear glasses now. He's had enough time to grow a mustache or a beard. He might even have had some plastic surgery. His heaviness will be hard to disguise, though."

Troubled, Jamie started eating her omelette again.

Cavanaugh glanced at the television behind the counter. A commercial for a weight-losing product showed before and after photographs of a formerly bulky man who was now amazingly thin. He turned toward Jamie. "When I first met Prescott, he had shelves of the most carbohydrate-heavy, calorie-rich foods imaginable. Macaroni and cheese. Lasagna. Ravioli. Potato chips. Candy bars. Chocolates. Classic Coke."

"That would put the pounds on all right."

"Suppose he went on a crash diet."

Jamie looked up.

"It's been almost three weeks since I last saw him," Cavanaugh said. "If he starves himself, if he drinks tons of water to flush his system…"

"A man as determined as Prescott…" Jamie nodded. "It wouldn't be healthy, but I bet he could lose a pound or two a day."

"Jesus," Cavanaugh said, "at that rate, he'd soon be unrecognizable."

"But even with that beard you're trying to grow to disguise your appearance, you'll be very recognizable," Jamie said. "Prescott could blend with a crowd and see you coming."

"Not you, though," Cavanaugh said.

"What do you mean?"

"He doesn't know you're with me. He could look straight at you and not be aware you're hunting him."

"Hunting him is what you're doing," Jamie said.