The Protector (2003) (22 page)

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.