David Morrell - The Protector

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."

"I'd like to try."

"Alcohol, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines. People can get addicted to a lot of things. Some special-ops soldiers can't bear a quiet everyday life after they leave the service. They become mercenaries or contract operatives for the CIA, or security specialists."

"Or protective agents?"

Cavanaugh spread his hands in a gesture of self-admission. "It's like a race-car driver who isn't happy unless he's on a track, jockeying for position with other cars at two hundred and thirty miles an hour. The rush of adrenaline. To get it, he has to put up with periods of intense inactivity before and after each race. That's the way most protection assignments are. Intensely inactive. Even the inactivity, the constant waiting for trouble, has a rush to it, though. As much as I hate to say this, I'm addicted."

"Hate to say it?"

"Any addiction's a weakness."

The room became silent.

From a door opposite the one that Prescott had used to enter the living room, Chad appeared, wearing a white apron that contrasted with his red hair and looked slightly ridiculous on so muscular a man. He tried to sound like a butler in the movies. "Dinnah is served."

Cavanaugh couldn't help grinning. "I'll get the team."

As Chad returned to the kitchen, Prescott looked puzzled at the cotton gloves Cavanaugh wore. "Why did you put gloves on when you loaded the…"

"Magazine." Cavanaugh shoved it into the Sig and worked the slide on top of the pistol, inserting a round in the firing chamber. He pushed the decocking lever. "This kind of handgun ejects empty cartridges after discharging the bullets. I don't want to leave my fingerprints behind for somebody to identify them."

"Another way of being invisible?"

"If I had a coat of arms, Be Invisible would be my motto."

"What you said about addiction being a weakness," Prescott said. "It isn't always. Some thing's can't be controlled."

"I believe in willpower," Cavanaugh said.

"Sometimes, that isn't enough. The substance I discovered, for example, is stronger than anyone's will."

"I don't want anybody complaining because the only boneless sirloin 1 had was frozen and needed to be thawed in a microwave," Chad said.

The group, minus Tracy, who continued to watch the monitors in the control room, sat at a long table in a kitchen filled with stainless-steel appliances. The plates before the group had half-inch strips of beef in a beige sauce studded with mushrooms and onions on top of green noodles. A bowl of salad was next to each plate, with a napkin-covered basket of freshly baked bread in the middle.

"And I don't want anybody complaining because the green noodles aren't homemade but came out of a box."

"I can't imagine anyone complaining," Prescott said. "It looks and smells wonderful."

"With the right attitude like that, I'll cook for you anytime," Chad said.

"The team's on duty," Duncan told Prescott, "and can't have wine, but that doesn't mean you can't. I can offer what I'm told is a fine Chianti Classico."

Prescott nodded in approval.

Roberto stuck a napkin into the top of his shirt, highlighting his dark goatee. "Man, I haven't had goulash in ages."

"It's not goulash. It's beef Stroganoff," Chad said. "It was invented by a French chef who worked for a Russian aristocrat in the late nineteenth century. The aristocrat's name was Count Paul Stroganoff. As usual, the guy with the power got the attention, while nobody remembers the chef who created the dish."

"Did you ever think about getting an honest job and running a restaurant?" Cavanaugh asked.

"All the time," Chad said, "but I know I'd miss the smell of gun oil."

"Delicious." The enthusiasm with which Prescott ate was impressive. "There's something a little extra here that I can't quite place. The mustard and the sour cream, of course. But…"

Chad watched with interest as Prescott savored a mouthful.

"Oyster sauce? Is that what I'm tasting? Oyster sauce?"

"Two tablespoons. You know your food."

"Here's your wine." Duncan showed Prescott the bottle, then set a glass next to him.

Prescott let the dark liquid drift over his tongue, assessing it.

"I telephoned my contacts at the DEA to learn more about Escobar's tactics, but it's Sunday evening, so I couldn't reach them," Duncan said. "I'll try again tomorrow. Meanwhile, we have a number of issues to discuss." He looked at Cavanaugh, who set down his fork and started the briefing.

"You need to understand there are four stages involved in arranging for you to disappear," Cavanaugh said. "The first is a new identity and new documentation for it, especially a birth certificate and a Social Security number. You want to be confident that the government won't question your Social Security number. One way to do it is to assume the identity of someone who's been dead for quite a while, someone without any close living relatives to contradict your claim to be that person. You meet these requirements by searching old newspapers for an item about an entire family that died in a fire or a similar disaster. You then learn the Social Security number of a child in that family who'd be your age now if he had lived. Many parents get a Social Security number for their newborns. Hospitals often include the applications with their regular paperwork. In some states, death certificates include that number, and death certificates are easy to obtain, a matter of public record."

"Assuming someone else's Social Security number is illegal, of course," Duncan said. "As a consequence, we never perform that service for any of our clients. We only teach them how to do it."

"I understand," Prescott said.

Cavanaugh continued. "For a moderate threat level, it's a fairly secure way to assume a new identity."

"Not foolproof, though." Roberto wiped his mouth with his napkin and joined the conversation. "Sometimes the government gets curious about a Social Security number that hasn't been used for years and now suddenly shows up on tax returns, which means that in addition to whoever's hunting you, you've got the government on your back, charging you with a federal crime."

"Exactly," Cavanaugh said. "And Escobar's threat level is too serious for us to allow you to get exposed in any way."

"What we're going to suggest," Duncan said, "is expensive, greater than the hundred-thousand-dollar fee you and I negotiated over the telephone."

"You want to raise the price?" Prescott set down his knife and fork.

"Given what happened today," Duncan said, "I don't have a choice."

"Raise it how much?" Prescott frowned.

"An additional four hundred thousand."

Prescott didn't blink. "You did a background check on me?"

"I did."

"You know that my biotech patents made me a millionaire many times over."

"I do."

"Thanks to Protective Services, I'm not in Escobar's hands. In fact, given everything Cavanaugh and the rest of you have done so far, not to mention all this-" Prescott gestured toward his surroundings-"a half million dollars sounds like a bargain. Tomorrow morning, I'll arrange an electronic transfer to your account."

"One hundred thousand dollars of that money," Duncan said, "shouldn't go anywhere near our account. Once we teach you how to hide the electronic trail, I want the hundred thousand transferred directly to someone else." Duncan slid a piece of paper across the table to Prescott. The paper had numbers and a bank's name written on it.