The Naked Edge (2 page)

A painful combination of anger and affection seized him.

“He'd dead, but he doesn't know it,” the sniper said. “Ten minutes? Sure. I can wait that long. This is what it feels like.”

“Feels like?”

“To be God.”

5

Driving across the pasture, Cavanaugh smiled at the half-dozen horses grazing near a stream. A mare galloped toward him. She was a five-year-old quarter horse named after her color, Chestnut. As she ran parallel to the moving car, Cavanaugh lowered his window.

“Guess what
I
have?” He nodded toward a paper bag next to him.

The horse kept thundering next to him.

Cavanaugh pulled out a big red apple. “Want it now or later?”

Chestnut snapped at it.

“Hey, where are your manners?” Cavanaugh tossed the apple over Chestnut's head and watched her veer toward where it landed in the grass.

The five other horses, one of them a colt, realized what was happening and galloped in Cavanaugh's direction.

“I suppose I need to be fair.” He dumped the bag of apples onto the grass and drove on.

Beyond the pasture was a three-story lodge. Made of logs, it had a wide, welcoming porch. Ten years earlier, while working in the area (his client: a political columnist threatened by a stalker), Cavanaugh had heard about a dude ranch for sale. Investigating while off-duty, he was so impressed by the peaceful feel of the canyon that he did one of the few impulsive things in his life and bought it.

It was expensive. For the down payment, he needed to hand over every dollar he'd saved as a protective agent and to accept two high-paying, extremely dangerous assignments. Thereafter, most of his income went toward the mortgage. But he never regretted his decision. Between jobs, sometimes convalescing from injuries, he came back to his magical hundred acres, which had the equally magical name of “home.”

As Cavanaugh drove toward the lodge, he saw Jamie standing on the porch, attaching a walkie-talkie to her belt. Smiling, she stepped out into the sun, which glinted off her brunette ponytail. She was five feet ten, her jeans emphasizing her figure, her cowboy boots lifting her heels, making her legs seem to stretch up forever toward her hips. Her face had the narrow chin and high cheekbones of classical beauty. But her green eyes, a mixture of amusement and intelligence, were what most captivated him.

He parked in front of the lodge and got out of the car.

“That Pizza Hut thing made me hungry. I don't suppose you actually did bring a pizza,” Jamie said.

“Nope.”

“Bummer.”

“Something better.”

“A Philadelphia steak sandwich?” she asked.

“How can you be so thin and think so much about food?”

“Because that's all I do is think about it. You feed the horses, but you never feed
me
. Come on, ‘fess up, you brought Kentucky Fried Chicken, right?”

“Sorry.”

“Double bummer.”

“Even better than KFC.” Cavanaugh leaned into the car and picked up a small case indented with the words HECKLER & KOCH.

“Awww,” Jamie said, “you're right. It
is
better than KFC. You really know the way to a woman's heart. I just love it when you bring me a gun.”

“But not just any gun.”

“Don't keep me in suspense. What makes this one so special?”

“It's called the P-2000.”

“My, yes, that certainly sounds special.”

Their boot steps echoing, they crossed the porch and entered the lodge. A spacious “communal room,” as the real-estate brochure described it, had a wide staircase, a huge stone fireplace, a battered upright piano, a long table where lodgers had eaten during the dude-ranch days, and several ceiling light fixtures in the shape of wagon wheels.

“Do you remember the first rule of choosing a handgun?” Cavanaugh asked.

“The gun has to fit the hand.”

“Right. If the grip's too large, your finger can't reach the trigger without stretching. The gun twists to the side and ruins your aim.”

Reaching the kitchen, Cavanaugh looked at a row of monitors under a cupboard. Linked to security cameras, the screens showed various areas of the property. Satisfied that everything appeared normal, he turned toward where Mrs. Patterson rolled a pie crust. A sixty-year-old widow whose children and grandchildren lived in Jackson, she had worked for the dude ranch and agreed to stay.

“What kind of pie are you making?” Jamie asked.

“Pumpkin.”

“Maybe I'll skip dinner tonight and just eat the pie.”

Cavanaugh shook his head in amazement at Jamie's appetite. He opened a cupboard, took out a box of nine-millimeter ammunition and an equipment bag, then headed toward the back door. “It's going to be loud for a while, Mrs. Patterson.”

The gray-haired woman set down her rolling pin, pulled a Kleenex from her apron, tore it in two, and wadded the halves into her ears.

The screen door banged shut as Cavanaugh and Jamie walked toward a shooting area next to a barn. Feeling the intense sunlight, they stopped at a weathered wooden table and faced metal targets twenty-five yards away, a mound behind them. Each target had the outline of a human head and torso.

Cavanaugh opened the case, took out the pistol, and showed Jamie that there wasn't a magazine in it. Then he locked back the slide to reveal that there wasn't a round in the firing chamber.

“Cold gun?”

“Cold gun,” she agreed.

He set the pistol and the gear bag on the table. Then he opened the box of ammunition. With practiced efficiency, he and Jamie loaded ten rounds into three magazines.

“It always amazes me that you don't break your fingernails,” Cavanaugh said.

“That's how little attention you pay. Hanging around with you, I'd
don't have
any fingernails. So tell me about the P-2000.”

“Even Goldilocks would like it.” Cavanaugh showed Jamie three polymer strips labeled S, L, or XL. A strip on the back of the weapon's grip was labeled M.

“You're telling me you can size the grip . . . ?”

“To fit the hand. Try it.”

Although the pistol was still “cold,” Cavanaugh approved of the way Jamie pointed it down range, as if it were loaded.

“Not quite comfortable,” she said. “Slightly too big for my hand.”

“Then we'll reduce the grip.” Cavanaugh pulled a hammer and a punch from the equipment bag. With a few taps, he removed a pin from the strip. He took it off and attached the one marked S. “
Now
try it.”

“Perfect,” Jamie said.

Cavanaugh was fascinated by the problem of hands fitting grips because his own hand was small in comparison to his six-foot frame. Prior to his Delta Force training, he'd been obligated to use the Army's standard sidearm, Beretta's fifteen-round nine millimeter. For a magazine to hold that many rounds, it needed to have two columns of ammunition. The result was a grip too large for him. He'd managed to compensate and control his aim, but like someone forced to wear tight shoes for a long time, he was now obsessed with proper size and comfort.

“Put some rounds through it,” he suggested.

“Ladies first? Gosh.” Jamie shoved a magazine into the grip and pressed a lever on the side. A similar lever was on the opposite side, making the weapon ambidextrous, another rarity. The slide, which had been locked back, rammed home, chambering a round.

“I need my fashion accessories,” she told him.

They put on their protective glasses and ear guards, then approached the targets, stopping ten yards away, a standard shooting distance. Most gunfights occurred within half that space.

Jamie raised the pistol, both arms straight out, both hands solidly on the grip, both thumbs pointed along the side as a further way of aligning the barrel with the target.

Cavanaugh considered the freedom with which she lifted her arms. No evident discomfort, no stiffness to indicate her bullet wound five months earlier.

She pulled the trigger.

6

Hidden among the trees on the ridge, the spotter frowned toward the back of the lodge. The target and the woman were out of sight behind a barn

Interesting that I want to objectify him by calling him “the target” instead of using his name
.
Doesn't seem a day older. Kept in shape. Picked a damned good-looking wife.

You son of a bitch.

The spotter unclipped a polished ebony knife from his pocket, thumbing the blade open and closing it. “Target practice,” he said in response to the gunshots.

“A handgun,” the sniper commented.

“Yes. Sounds like a nine millimeter. Must be a metal target. Hear the bullets hitting it?”

“Accurate shooter.”

“Oh, he's definitely an accurate shooter,” the spotter said. “That's why we're up here and not down there.”

The sniper counted. “Nine, ten, eleven, twelve.”

“Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.”

“Large magazine. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.
Hell
of a large magazine. You know any handguns that hold that many rounds?”

“No,” the spotter said. “After ten, a slight pause. Hard to notice. That's when the magazine got changed.”

“Damned fast magazine change.”

“Twenty-two. Twenty-three. After twenty, another slight pause.”

“Yeah, a super-fast magazine change,” the sniper agreed. “Well, I'm here to blast his eye out at seven-hundred yards, not have a gunfight with him.”

Amid the shots echoing across the canyon, they heard an approaching rumble.

7

Ear guards muffle sounds but don't eliminate them. Cavanaugh listened to the rhythmic thunder and peered toward the southern rim of the canyon, from behind which a helicopter appeared, its dragonfly shape getting larger, silhouetted against the cobalt sky.

Jamie lowered the pistol and glanced at her watch. “He's early.”

“Yeah.” Cavanaugh took off his ear guards. “A half hour. I was hoping he wouldn't come at all.”

“You still don't know what he wants?”

“Only that he said it's important. But I can guess. He plans to offer me a job.”

As the helicopter roared closer, Cavanaugh was able to read the name stenciled in red across the side: Global Protective Services. Memories rushed through him . . . the clients he'd protected, some wealthy and powerful, others ordinary people whom he'd persuaded GPS to help, all sharing the common denominator that they were prey . . . the protective agents he'd worked with, all of them linked by their hatred of predators and their devotion to being guardians, even at the cost of their lives.

Jamie said something, but the growing din of the chopper prevented him from hearing her. Or perhaps it was the memories.

“What?” he asked.

“Are you going to take the job?”

Preoccupied, Cavanaugh reached under his loose denim shirt and removed his knife from its sheath on the left side of his belt. A rugged utility knife, useful for work around the ranch, it was a gift from his friend, Gil Hibben, commemorating Gil's induction into the Knifemaker's Hall of Fame. It had the balance for what Cavanaugh did next. Releasing the emotions that memories of his dead friends had caused, he drew back his arm and hurled the blade toward a post fifteen feet away, expertly judging the number of flips the knife had to make.

It struck solidly, the force of his throw and his emotions embedding it.

“No,” he said. “I won't take the job.”

“I think you should.”

The chopper was nearer, louder.

Ignoring it, Cavanaugh turned toward Jamie. “Five months ago, you nearly died. I still have nightmares about it.”

“You didn't force me to go along. I made a choice. It wasn't your fault I was shot.”

“I'm never going to put you at risk again.”

“But a lot of people need help.”

“Somebody else will have to give it to them.”

The helicopter hovered over a section of grass between the barn and the lodge.

“We'd better not be rude and keep him waiting,” Cavanaugh said.

“In other words, you're changing the subject.”

Cavanaugh shrugged. He retrieved his knife, then followed her to the weathered table, where they put their eye-and-ear protection into the equipment bag.

Jamie dropped the magazine from the pistol and caught it in the air.

Impressed, Cavanaugh reloaded it, not looking where the helicopter landed, the roar of its engine diminishing.

“Now we
are
being rude,” Jamie said.

“Do you suppose it's a clue that I don't want to talk to him?”

8

“Early,” the sniper said.

“Yeah.” The spotter kept opening his knife and closing it.

“Complicates things. I told you I could have done it when he got out of the car. Now—”

“Now we'll just have to wait a little longer.” The spotter readjusted the radio bud in his ear, listening harder. “The backup team isn't in position to cut the phone line yet.”

Two men got out of the chopper.

“Getting crowded,” the sniper said.

9

The first man who climbed down from the helicopter was forty-three, but his permanently pensive expression created wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and mouth, making him look older. His dark hair was as immaculately cared for as his handmade shoes and his custom-tailored suit. His broad shoulders and proud chest gave him a further imposing look. He carried a leather briefcase that shone with polish. His contact lenses had a similar sheen, the intelligence in his eyes magnified by them. What his smile lacked in warmth was offset by the brilliance of his perfectly capped teeth.

“William.” Cavanaugh shook hands with him.

The man's last name was Faraday. A ruthless corporate attorney, he didn't just defeat his opponents’ clients but also destroyed them, in the process acquiring numerous enemies. Cavanaugh had once saved his life when a disgraced executive hired someone to try to kill him. In gratitude, William did much of Global Protective Service's legal work in exchange for ready access to world-class protectors.

“You remember Jamie,” Cavanaugh said.

“I do.” William shook her hand. They'd met when he prepared their wills. “Have you recovered from your injury?”