David Morrell - The naked edge

Then Cavanaugh was clear of the smoke and the dust. Ali set him down in the conference room and turned on the lights. Jamie squirmed next to him, blood running from her nose.

Cavanaugh realized that blood ran from his nose, also.

Through blurred vision, he stared at the draperies that covered the conference room windows. "Get us out of here." His voice seemed to come from far away.

"What?" Ali asked, as if Cavanaugh spoke gibberish.

And maybe Cavanaugh did speak gibberish. He pointed toward the windows. "Get us out of this room." He tried to say it as distinctly and forcefully as possible, his throat raw, his lips numb.

"The glass from the other window," he managed to say.

"What about it?"

"… sprayed inside the bedroom. The explosion came from outside. It must have been… "

"A rocket," Kim realized.

Handheld types were only thirty inches long. At this late hour, with midtown Manhattan mostly deserted, one could have been easily launched from the opposite sidewalk.

"Hurry." Ali helped to pull Cavanaugh and Jamie from the conference room into the lobby.

But they didn't stop there. Brockman was suddenly with them again. Dropping the fire extinguisher, he helped Ali yank open doors that led to a bank of elevators.

A bell rang. An elevator opened.

Brockman, Kim, and Ali drew their guns.

The man who emerged from the elevator wore black pants and a black leather jacket. He stared at the weapons, stopped chewing gum, and raised his hands. "Whoa," he said.

Slowly, the pistols were lowered.

The man was Eddie Macintosh, one of the protectors Cavanaugh had sent for. He studied the blood trickling from Cavanaugh's nose. "Tell me what to do."

"Have you got a car?"

"In the parking garage downstairs."

From the gaping window down the hall, they heard the wail of approaching sirens.

Jamie sat up. "Get us out of here."

"To the hospital?"

"No. We'd be targets there."

"And we'd be defenseless at a police precinct." Cavanaugh forced himself to stand. "We can't assume every police officer and fireman who arrives is genuine."

Through the shattered window, the sirens sounded closer.

Cavanaugh wavered, then helped Jamie up. "How did they know to hit our bedroom?"

"Maybe they saw its light go on," Brockman said.

"No. That light was off," Jamie insisted. "What was that phone call about?"

Brockman's tone was stark. "Another agent's been killed."

"What?"

"Jack Gantry. He was in Vancouver, protecting a TV anchorwoman from a stalker. He escorted her home. When he walked back to his car, he got hit. A crossbow. Those things are almost as powerful as some pistols. No sound."

"A crossbow?" Cavanaugh's confusion made him feel as if the floor shifted. "Kim, do you have a backup for the printout you gave me?"

She fumbled in her suit coat and gave him a memory stick.

"Tell the police we'll contact them when we're safe." Unwilling to trust the elevator, Cavanaugh motioned for Jamie and Eddie to follow him toward the fire door.

The stairs felt cold. Cavanaugh tried to assure himself that was why he shivered. Footsteps scraping, the group descended from the fortieth to the thirtieth floor, where he surprised Jamie and Eddie by opening the door.

Eddie looked puzzled. "You said we were leaving the building."

"The others don't need to know."

Cavanaugh glanced inside and made sure that the softly lit corridor was empty. After they went in, he held three fingers in front of Jamie. "How many?"

She told him.

"Blurred?"

"No."

"Headache?"

"Yes." Jamie wiped blood from her nose.

"We need to wait and see if it's a concussion."

"How will we know?"

"If you throw up or feel sleepy."

"Sleepy? At this hour? Imagine that." Jamie turned toward Eddie. "We haven't been introduced. Jamie Travers."

"Eddie Macintosh. Are you an operator? You must be new. I haven't seen you around."

"She's my wife," Cavanaugh said.

"Wonders never cease."

"And yes," Cavanaugh said, "she's an operator."

"Haven't seen you around, either. I heard you left the business."

"I tried. But now I'm back."

Cavanaugh led them to a door marked WILLIAM FARADAY LAW OFFICES. He raised his jacket collar, reached into a slit in the material, and pulled out lock-pick tools that he'd taken from the Gulfstream's bug-out bag. He inserted one of the picks into the lock, probing to free the pins while he used another pick to apply torque and turn the key slot.

It took him thirty seconds. Too long, he thought. I should have been able to do it in fifteen. Perhaps he was still dazed from the explosions. But perhaps his lock-picking skills had atrophied during the months he'd stopped being a protector.

That made him worry about what other skills might have atrophied.

He opened the door and heard the intrusion alarm's beep. If he didn't enter the access code within thirty seconds, the alarm would blare. Leaving the lights off, he crossed the waiting room to the control panel and pressed buttons for the code that he and William had agreed on when the system was installed.

The beeping stopped.

Jamie locked the door behind them.

"Faraday," a voice croaked. "Jerk."

Jamie and Eddie drew their guns.

A dim nightlight revealed a parrot in a cage.

"Faraday. Jerk," the bird repeated.

"What the hell?" Eddie muttered.

"One of William's competitors sent the parrot after losing a case to him," Cavanaugh explained. "William thanked the rival attorney and promised to keep the bird in his reception room."

"William did that?" Jamie asked in surprise.

"He also swore to keep the bottom of the cage lined with photographs of the man who sent the parrot. William's clients find it amusing to look down and see bird droppings over the guy's face."

"Now that sounds more like William."

"Faraday. Jerk," the parrot squawked.

Cavanaugh hurried to the receptionist's desk and turned on its computer. Helped by its glow, he inserted Kim's memory stick and activated the printer.

As the machine went to work, he asked Eddie, "Are you armed?"

"Of course."

"Mind watching the front door while we clean the blood off us?"

Eddie pushed back one side of his leather jacket and drew a Beretta nine-millimeter. He had big hands and could handle the double-stacked fifteen-round magazine. He put another piece of gum into his mouth.

"Anybody who breaks through that door won't live to break through another one."

"Still got a headache?"

Cavanaugh used a moist paper towel to wipe blood from Jamie's face. The restroom didn't have windows, so it was safe to turn on the lights, which pained Cavanaugh's eyes.

"Not as bad. You?" Jamie wiped blood from his face.

"Shook up."

"You don't show it." Her voice echoed off the room's tiles.

"You're doing a good job of hiding it, also. Are you sure you don't feel dizzy?" The bright lights continued to hurt his eyes.

"You mean, do I think I'm going to pass out from a concussion? No. How do I know? Because I'm starved for a medium pizza with pepperoni and mushrooms."

"I guess you're going to live."

"For now."

"Yes," Cavanaugh said, the words sticking in his throat. "For now."

As he guided her toward the door to the hallway, she hesitated, no longer able to ignore her troubled thoughts. "How did they know to make the bedroom the target? I didn't turn the light on. They couldn't have known we were going in there."

"Maybe the phone call," Cavanaugh replied.

"You didn't answer it. They couldn't have known we were in that office."

"But then the call was automatically transferred to Brockman," Cavanaugh reminded her.