David Morrell: The naked edge

"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?"

"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.

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?"

"Yes. Thanks for asking."

William nodded, as if not accustomed to displaying soft human emotions or being complimented for it.

"Angelo," Cavanaugh said to the chopper's pilot. "It's been too long."

"Since Puerto Vallarta," the husky man replied, "and that stock market analyst we protected. Remember how he was afraid angry investors were waiting for him behind every corner."

"Hell, one of them was." Cavanaugh shook his hand warmly. "How are the llamas you were raising?"

"They were sissies. They never bred."

"You're sure you had male and female?"

"You think I can't tell the difference? They spent more time spitting than trying to fornicate. Right in my eye. One of them spat right here." Angelo used a middle finger to point at his eye.

Cavanaugh couldn't help laughing.

"Then they jumped the fence. By the time I found them, they'd been run over by a cement truck. If I'd been smart, I'd have eaten them instead of trying to breed them."

"They taste good?"

"I have no idea, but now I raise ostriches. Those you can eat. Plus, they lay eggs the size of basketballs."

"True?"

"I exaggerate only slightly."

Cavanaugh laughed again. "Hombre, I missed you."

He led them toward the lodge. In the kitchen, he scanned the monitors again, saw that everything was normal, and introduced Mrs. Patterson as she spooned pumpkin mix into the pie crust.

"Want something to eat or drink?" he asked his guests.

"Thank you, no," William answered. "We have business to discuss. Then I need to get to Denver."

"What's in Denver?"

"A Vietnamese businessman with a problem."

"Ah." Knowing William's reluctance to confide, Cavanaugh knew that the Vietnamese businessman might actually be a Japanese baseball player. "I hoped you'd stay for a while. Both of you are welcome. You'll never forget the color of the sunset behind the Tetons."

"Another time."

The office looked the same as when the property had been a dude ranch. Next to an old desk, a wall of photographs showed children fishing, swimming, riding horses, and pitching their tents in the meadow next to the lodge. Another wall had shelves with slots for mail and messages. Everything retained the vague smell of pipe smoke from long ago. On occasion, Cavanaugh was tempted to clear everything out, but then he remembered the two men in their thirties who'd arrived a couple of years earlier. They drove Winnebagos. They had beer paunches, their wives looked bored, and their kids kept shoving each other. The men asked Cavanaugh if it was all right for them to show their families what the children's camp had been like. They'd spent the happiest summers of their lives here, they said. They couldn't get over that everything was the same.

Their happiest summers. Cavanaugh had found it sad that they knew their lives hadn't gotten any better.

Now William sat in a dark leather chair and opened his briefcase while Cavanaugh and Jamie watched from wooden chairs across from him.

"I came all this way because-"

"You might as well know right away that I don't want a job."

"A job? You think I came here to offer you a job?"

"Didn't you?"

"The word 'job' doesn't quite describe it." William looked amused. "I'm offering you everything."

"What are you talking about?"

"'Lock, stock, and barrel,' as I believe they say out here."

"You're not making sense."

"You've got it all, my friend."

"All of what?"

"Global Protective Services."

Cavanaugh was certain he hadn't heard correctly. Then his heart lurched, and he took a long breath.

"Duncan gave it to you in his will," William said.

Again, Cavanaugh was overwhelmed by memories. Tall and wiry, with a mustache, Duncan had been Cavanaugh's Delta Force instructor. After leaving the military, Duncan had founded an international security agency that flourished, thanks to the quality of the personnel Duncan hired, all of them from special-operations units around the world, many of them having been Duncan's students. When Duncan had been killed on an assignment, there were Global Protective Services branches in New York, London, Rome, and Hong Kong, with another planned for Tokyo.

"His will?" Cavanaugh subdued the anger he suddenly felt. "You're telling me about this five months after he died?"

"There were reasons."

"What reasons? Jesus, we could have talked about this at Duncan's funeral. We could have-"

"No," William said, "we couldn't have."

Cavanaugh noticed Jamie looking at him with concern.

"I'm sorry," he told William. "I didn't mean to sound like I was criticizing you."

"Of course not. Anyway, you're in mourning. You're allowed. One of the reasons you didn't hear about this until now is that it was difficult to verify Duncan's death so that the probate process could begin."

"Verify his…" Then Cavanaugh understood. The bullets had mutilated Duncan's face so completely that his teeth couldn't be used to establish his identity. What the bullets hadn't accomplished, a fire had. "God help him."

"There were indications of healed broken ribs and a similarly healed broken collarbone."

"Occupational injuries." Cavanaugh felt sympathetic twinges in his own healed bones.

"Unfortunately, there weren't any recent x-rays of those areas of his body, so I still couldn't prove the remains were his. Finally, I went to the Pentagon and asked to see Duncan's medical file. The Army was as protective of him in death as if he'd continued to be a Delta Force instructor. It took a phone call from a former client, a ranking member of the current administration, before the file was released to me. My concern was that the injuries occurred after Duncan left the military, in which case the x-ray films would have been valueless. But in fact, the broken ribs and collarbone were visible. I was able to make my case."