David Morrell - The Protector

Sickened, Cavanaugh found himself leaning back, taking the syringe from where he'd pressed it against Kline's jugular.

Except for Kline's labored breathing, the room became silent. It took several moments before Kline-pale, taped to the chair, lying sideways on the floor-seemed to realize that the syringe had been removed. Slowly, apprehensively, he opened his eyes, evidently not believing that Cavanaugh sat across from him, the syringe next to him on the carpet. "Keep talking," Cavanaugh said.

"Two things happened." Kline tried to raise his head so he could look at Cavanaugh straight on. "First, my employer learned about the experiments." "How?"

"One of Prescott's researchers was an informant for us." "And the second thing?"

"The informant wasn't cautious about the way he spent what we paid him. Prescott's controllers became suspicious, interrogated the man, and discovered that the research had been compromised, that an unfriendly foreign government wanted the weapon. In tandem with the dead Rangers in the failed experiment, that security lapse made the military officers decide it was too risky to continue. Before anyone in your government could learn about the research and make trouble about it, they aborted the program."

Kline let the implication hang in the air. "You're suggesting Prescott's controllers worried about him, about whether they could trust him?" Cavanaugh asked.

"Our informant knew the nature of the fear hormone but not how to produce it. Only Prescott had all the details. He was synonymous with the research. To shut down the program fully-"

"Prescott had to be eliminated," Cavanaugh said.

"Especially because his controllers knew we wanted to get our hands on him. He suspected the danger he faced. He fled-with us and his controllers after him, one group trying to capture him, the other trying to kill him. We managed to track him to that warehouse. Then you showed up, and here we are," Kline said.

"But how did Prescott's controllers learn where we were taking him?" Cavanaugh asked. Abruptly, the answer seemed evident. "They must have followed you to the warehouse."

"We were careful."

"Perhaps one of your men informed on you."

"Then why did it take so long for Prescott's controllers to try to get him?" Kline asked. "They made their move only after you became involved."

Cavanaugh felt his face turn cold. "I was followed? Someone at Protective Services told them we were helping Prescott?"

"Your firm protects the rich and powerful. It makes sense that various intelligence agencies would keep tabs on your company's activities."

Again, Cavanaugh began to lose focus on reality. He didn't know what to think, what to depend on. Then he looked at Jamie, whose beautiful yet worried gaze was directed toward him, and he knew very definitely what to depend on.

"To hell with it." Cavanaugh raised Kline from the floor and pulled out the Emerson knife.

"What are you doing?" Kline flinched.

"John's going to phone the Justice Department and have your companions picked up for a heart-to-heart chat about unfriendly foreign governments."

Kline stared at the knife. "But what's going to happen to me?"

"We're going sight-seeing."

"What?"

"A quiet drive in the countryside."

"With you?" Kline looked pleadingly toward Rutherford. "Can't you see this guy's crazy? He'll take me out to the woods. God knows what he'll do to me there. No one'll ever find my body."

Rutherford studied Cavanaugh. "Can I talk to you a minute?"

"Keep your pistol aimed at Kline," Cavanaugh told Jamie. He followed Rutherford into the bedroom.

Rutherford closed the bedroom door. "Are you serious?"

"I need him to show me Prescott's lab. Maybe something there will tell me where Prescott went. It's the only direction I can think to go."

"Can't let you," Rutherford said. "Kline's an FBI prisoner now."

"I haven't heard you read him his rights."

"You will in about thirty seconds," Rutherford said.

"How about in a couple of hours?"

"What are you trying to-"

"Once Kline's officially in FBI custody and the Bureau puts him in a government facility, the pressure's off him. He won't feel threatened. He won't tell you anything more."

"Kidnapping a federal agent can put him in prison for life," Rutherford said. "He'll tell us anything we want to know in exchange for a plea bargain."

"But plea bargains take time," Cavanaugh said. "Meanwhile, Prescott's trail gets colder. I need everything Kline knows now."

"Can't," Rutherford repeated. "If the Bureau found out I let a prisoner go, I'd lose my job."

"You won't be letting him go," Cavanaugh said.

"Then why are we having this conversation?"

"I'm taking him."

"What?"

"Wait two hours, then phone the Bureau. Tell them there was another prisoner but that I took him before the situation was under control. Tell them we went to Prescott's lab. Send a team out there. By then, I'll have learned everything I need from Kline."

"You are crazy."

"Let's just say things are happening inside me I need to stop."

"I don't understand."

Cavanaugh held up his shaking hand. "Prescott gave me a dose of the fear hormone Kline talked about."

Rutherford didn't say anything for a moment. "God."

"Kline said there was a neutralizer. Prescott has it. I need it." Cavanaugh opened the door and went into the living room, where Kline looked apprehensive. "Let's go."

"No," Rutherford said.

Cavanaugh thumbed open the Emerson knife, freed Kline from the chair, tied his wrists in front of him, and draped Kline's leather jacket over his hands. "We'll use the stairs and go out through the emergency exit. Jennifer, get the car. Meet us in back."

"I can't let you do this," Rutherford said.

"Two hours, John."

"Don't make me stop you."

"What are you going to do? Shoot me?"

Rutherford stared at him.

While Jamie drove, Kline sat next to her. Cavanaugh was in the back, his pistol under a newspaper on his lap, ready to shoot through the rear of Kline's seat if Kline did anything to justify it.

A hundred miles west of Washington, the Virginia countryside was lush and hilly, with fewer towns and more fields and wooded areas as they went along. Occasional farmhouses, stone fences, and ponds were visible along the tree-lined two-lane road. The prevailing impression, though, was of large estates and horses grazing.

At four in the afternoon, there was little traffic. As Jamie guided the Taurus into a hollow, up a slight rise, and into another hollow, Cavanaugh asked Kline, "How far?"

"Another five minutes."

"You're certain the two men you left here to watch for me have gone?"

"You heard me phone and tell them to leave. You made it clear: You'll shoot me if you catch even a glimpse of them. I assure you, they've gone. I gave them no warning."

Jamie drove past a sign that read bailey's ridge. "Where's the town? I don't see any buildings."

"It's not a town," Kline said.

"Then what is it?"

"A site where a Civil War battle occurred."

Past the sign, a plaque showed a map and an historical note. Jamie stopped next to it.

The map was in bas-relief, dramatizing the contour of the wooded hills in the area. Arrows indicated where Union and Confederate soldiers had fought one another in a battle that had destroyed most of a farm owned by an Irish immigrant, Samuel Bailey, killing his wife and daughter. The battle had concluded when Bailey put on a fallen Union soldier's jacket, grabbed a rifle, and led a company of Northerners across a ridge above his farm, outflanking their opponents. Bailey went on to receive a field commission as a captain and to fight in numerous other battles, eventually dying from diphtheria, never again seeing his farm and the graves of his wife and daughter.