The Protector (2003) (12 page)

"If the alarm isn't deactivated in fifteen seconds," Cavanaugh told Prescott, "the intruder gets a dose of knockout gas."

Duncan turned to an interior control panel, again blocked it from view, and pressed a further sequence of numbers.

The beeping stopped. Motion sensors turned lights on within the structure.

"Welcome to your safe site."

Chapter 4.

Prescott entered slowly, with even greater wonder than when he'd seen the camouflage net retract to reveal the helicopter pad.

A hallway led to a large living area on the right. The floor was polished oak. The furnishings were leather. The walls were an off-white, covered with bookshelves, impressionistic paintings, and a large fireplace.

"This is a reinforced-concrete dome covered with earth," Duncan said. "We squared off the dome's interior walls for convenience. Because of the building's strong insulating structure, the temperature tends to be a uniform seventy-two degrees in both summer and winter, with a little help from a fireplace in each room."

"Solar panels and batteries provide the electricity," Chad said. "A backup generator kicks in if necessary."

"The drinking water comes from a well under the bunker, so it can't be poisoned. On top, sunlight comes through a ventilation shaft and gets reflected by a system of mirrors that distribute the sunlight, so the rooms seem to have windows," Tracy said. "It's one of the most energy-efficient buildings imaginable."

"But with the entrance controlled electronically, if the power fails, we'll be trapped," Prescott said.

"There's a manual override on the door. Plus a second way out." Duncan pointed toward a metal door at the end of the corridor. "It has a knob, and a lever for a dead-bolt lock. But on the outside, there's nothing--no knob, no key slot, no way to pick the lock and get in."

Prescott breathed a little easier.

"Is anybody hungry?" Chad rubbed his hands together.

"That depends," Tracy said. "Who's doing the cooking? You?"

"None other."

"In that case, I'm starved."

Chad had a reputation for being an impressive cook. "Mr. Prescott, are you a vegetarian? Do you have food allergies?"

"I can eat anything."

Cavanaugh silently concurred, remembering the shelves of carbohydrate-rich food at the warehouse.

"Beef Stroganoff coming up," Chad said.

"Easy on the cream this time," Tracy said.

"Hey, if you're going to put restrictions on a genius at work ..."

"I'm trying to watch my figure."

"I'm watching your figure, too."

"Can you believe the way this guy talks to me?"

"While they sort this out," Duncan told Prescott, "why don't you get settled. If you enjoy tobacco, we have a room with various smoking materials."

"No." Prescott looked horrified by the thought.

"In that case, your room--smoke-free--is the third on the left in this corridor. I imagine a hot shower and some clothes that fit you would be welcome. There's a bar. Satellite television. A sauna. You've been through a lot. Perhaps you can relieve the strain enough to take a nap."

Chapter 5.

"What do you think of him?" Duncan asked after he and Cavanaugh watched Prescott enter his room. Letting Chad and Tracy go ahead with their various duties, the two men crossed the living room toward a door to the right of the fireplace; it led to an office.

"He doesn't have much of a personality, but he's an ideal client," Cavanaugh said. "He did exactly what I told him. He's overweight and out of shape, but he sucked it up and did what was necessary. Sure, he almost lost his lunch from being afraid, but he trusted me and never panicked to the point of losing control. Everything considered, he kind of impressed me."

"Anything else?"

"He's smart."

"Of course. He's a biochemist."

"Likes to learn. Asks a lot of questions."

"My arrangement with him was via telephone and an electronic transfer of funds," Duncan said. "He insisted that he couldn't meet me in person."

"Now we know why." Cavanaugh paused at the entrance to the offices as Duncan went in.

"Why didn't he tell me on the phone what his problem is?" Duncan eased his tall, slender frame into an Aeron chair behind a desk.

"Maybe he didn't know if he could trust us," Cavanaugh said. "He wanted to wait until he assessed one of us face-to-face."

Duncan thought about it. "But he trusted us enough to tell us where he was hiding. That isn't consistent."

"Not necessarily. Since he couldn't come to us, he didn't have a choice about letting one of us come to him," Cavanaugh said. "Besides, at the warehouse, he used TV cameras to study me. If anything looked suspicious, all he had to do was shut down communications, and I still wouldn't have known where he was."

"Do you think he understands what it truly means to disappear? Is he prepared to accept the consequences?"

"He's got plenty of incentive," Cavanaugh said. "As one of his attackers told me on a cell phone, they'll keep coming. In fact, I'm sort of the quarry now, too."

"Oh?"

"The man on the phone almost made it personal between him and me."

Duncan thought another moment and picked up a phone. "I'll speak to my contacts at the DEA and get more details about Prescott's situation."

"While you're making your calls ..."

"Yes?"

"At the warehouse, some homeless people helped Prescott and me get away. I promised them a truck of food and clothes would be delivered there tomorrow. Maybe some sleeping bags."

Duncan smiled. "I'll make it like the Ritz."

Chapter 6.

Cavanaugh had his handgun apart (in addition to gunpowder residue, he'd found rainwater on some of the interior parts) and was cleaning it on a towel on the living room's coffee table. Seeing movement, he looked up as Prescott entered.

"Did you get some sleep?" Cavanaugh asked.

Prescott nodded. "I surprised myself. I felt so tense, I expected just to keep lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling."

"Was the sleep any good?"

"When I woke up, I felt wonderful for a second. Then . . ." Prescott's voice dropped. He looked awkward in jeans and a denim shirt, evidently more accustomed to suits and ties. But, unlike the coveralls he'd worn on the helicopter, at least the clothes fit his heavy frame. Duncan prided himself on keeping various sizes at the bunker.

"Where is everybody?" Prescott asked.

Cavanaugh wiped gun oil on the Sig's various parts, which were laid out neatly on the towel in front of him. "Duncan's making phone calls. Tracy's in the control room."

"Control room?"

"Similar to what you had in the warehouse. This place is surrounded by security cameras. Tracy's watching the monitors and a radar screen that'll warn us if any aircraft are in the area. Roberto's maintaining the helicopter. Chad's cooking."

The smell of beef Stroganoff drifted pleasantly into the room.

"What about you?" Prescott surveyed the jeans and denim shirt that Cavanaugh now wore. "Were
you
able to rest?"

"I had a report to write and then some chores to do."

"Like this?" Prescott indicated the disassembled weapon.

"After action, the first thing I was trained to take care of is my equipment." Cavanaugh put the barrel into the slide, then secured the recoil spring and its guide rod into place. When he compressed the spring, he made sure to point it away from Prescott and himself, lest it catapult free and injure one of them.

"What did you mean, 'conditioned'?" Prescott asked.

Cavanaugh shook his head, confused.

Prescott continued. "When I told you that what you'd done to save me was one of the bravest things I'd ever seen, you said you're not brave--you're conditioned."

Cavanaugh slid the assembled slide mechanism onto the Sig's frame and secured it. He thought a moment. "People are brave when they're terrified but force themselves to risk their lives for somebody else."

Prescott nodded, listening intently.

"Why do you care about this?" Cavanaugh asked.

"My specialty is how the human brain functions, how it releases hormones and controls our behavior," Prescott said. "Epi-nephrine--what's commonly called adrenaline--is one of the hormones associated with fear. The speeding and contraction of the heart. The feeling of heat in the stomach. The jitteriness in the muscles. How someone like you overcomes the hormone's effects interests me."

"But I
don't
overcome it's effects."

"I don't understand."

"In Delta Force, I was trained to use those effects, to treat them as positives, instead of the negatives people associate with fear."

Prescott kept listening intently.

"Put a parachute on someone and tell that person to leap out of a plane at twenty thousand feet, he's going to be terrified. It's a potentially life-threatening activity and one that's totally unfamiliar- But train that person in small increments, teach him how to jump off increasingly high platforms into a swimming pool. Then teach him how to jump from even higher platforms wearing a bungee harness that simulates the feel of a parachute. Then show him how to jump from small planes at reasonable altitudes. Gradually increase the size and power of the planes and the height of the jump. By the time he leaps from that plane at twenty thousand feet, he's going to feel the same speeding and contraction of the heart, the same burning in the stomach, the same jitteriness in the muscles as before. This time, though, he's not terrified. He knows how to minimize the risk, and he's experienced hundreds of similar activities. What he feels instead of fear is the sharp focus of an athlete ready to spring into action. His adrenaline is affecting him the same way it always did. But his mind knows how to control it and to appreciate its constructive effects."

"Constructive?"

"The speeding and the contraction of the heart cause a greater output of blood to reach muscles and prepare them for extreme action. The faster breath rate causes more oxygen to get to muscles. The liver creates glucose, increasing the amount of sugar in the blood. At the same time, more fatty acids circulate. Both the sugar and the fatty acids become instant fuel, creating greater energy and stamina."

"Correct," Prescott said. "You had excellent instruction."

"I was trained to
welcome
adrenaline, to appreciate what it does to help keep me alive. I was also trained to think of gun-fights and car fights and all the rest of what happened today as being . . . not exactly normal, but I know what to expect. I know how to react. I can honestly say that not once today did I feel what's conventionally called fear."

Cavanaugh paused. Not once? he asked himself. What about the strange moment at the warehouse when I went up the stairs to meet Prescott?

"A powerful surge of adrenaline," Cavanaugh said, "but not fear, and that's why I don't think what 1 did today has anything to do with bravery. You're the one who's brave."

Prescott blinked. "Me? Brave? That's preposterous. For the past three weeks--and especially today--I've been terrified."

"That's my point," Cavanaugh said. "You can't be brave unless you're frightened to begin with. What you survived today was violent enough to unsettle even some experienced operators. I can only guess at the strength of character you had to muster to overcome the fear raging through you. You didn't freeze. You didn't panic, even though you must have felt that way. You promised me you'd be compliant, and you were. You're a prefect client."

Self-conscious, Prescott glanced down at the hardwood floor. Evidently, he wasn't used to compliments. "You might not feel afraid, but you still risk losing your life. For strangers. Why do you do that?"

Cavanaugh put on cotton gloves and began inserting 9-mm rounds into the pistol's magazine. In Manhattan, at the Warwick's bar, Jamie had asked a similar question. "Because it's what I know how to do and I'm good at it."

"No other reason?" Prescott asked.

"It's something I don't talk about with most people, because most people can't understand. Maybe
you
will because of your research into addiction."