David Morrell: The Protector

On the screen, the ragged men, drenched with rain, tugged at the side-view mirrors or used chunks of metal to pry at the hubcaps.

"Have you got a way to hear what's going on outside?" Cavanaugh asked.

Prescott flipped a switch on a console. Immediately, the sound of rain came through an audio speaker.

Cavanaugh heard the distant scrape of metal as the ragged men worked in the downpour to try to disassemble his car. "Get a job, guys."

He took the car's remote control from his jacket pocket. It was more elaborate than usual, equipped with half a dozen buttons.

Prescott looked puzzled as Cavanaugh pressed one of the buttons.

Suddenly, the audio speaker filled the room with an ear-torturing siren that came from the Taurus and made the men drop their makeshift burglary tools, fleeing like drenched versions of the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz.

Cavanaugh pressed the button again, and the siren stopped.

"Are you ready to get out of here?" he asked Prescott.

"To?" Prescott looked apprehensive.

"Somewhere safer than this, although, Lord knows, this place is safe enough. After my team arrives, after we get organized, we'll give you a new identity and relocate you. But first I need to know what kind of risk level we're talking about. Why are you so frightened?"

Prescott opened his mouth to answer, then frowned at the monitor.

Four of the men were back, heading for the Taurus.

"At least they get points for persistence," Cavanaugh said.

He pressed another button on the remote control.

Gray vapor spewed from under the wheel wells. Despite the rain, it blossomed, enveloping the crack addicts. Coughing and cursing, they stumbled back. Bent over as if they were going to be sick, they pawed at their eyes and staggered away.

Cavanaugh pressed the button again, and the vapor stopped spewing from the wheel wells.

"What on earth was that?" Prescott asked.

"Tear gas."

"What?"

"The car's modified the way the best Secret Service vehicles are. It's armor-plated and-" A new image on the monitor made him stop. "Amazing. With their ambition, if these guys were in politics, they could run the world."

On the screen, two more crack addicts approached the Taurus.

"Turn down the volume on that speaker," Cavanaugh told Prescott.

Confused, Prescott did what he was told.

As the men came closer to the Taurus, Cavanaugh pressed another button on the remote control.

Small black canisters catapulted from under the wheel wells. Shaped like miniature soup cans, they exploded with numerous roars that shook the speaker, even though its volume had been reduced. The multiple flashes of the explosions were so bright that the camera had trouble maintaining its contrast level.

When the smoke cleared, the two crack addicts lay on the concrete.

"My God, you killed them," Prescott said.

"No."

"But they were so close to the grenades."

"Those weren't grenades."

On the screen, the two men began to squirm.

"I used flash-bangs," Cavanaugh said.

"Flash-bangs?"

"Sort of like grenades, except they don't throw shrapnel. But they blind and deafen for a while. Those guys are going to have a whale of a headache."

On the screen, the two crack addicts struggled upright, holding their ears.

"But this car can be equipped to launch grenades if the mission calls for it," Cavanaugh said. "And it can be modified for machine guns under the headlights. All the best dictators and drug lords have those extras. In a more luxurious car than a Taurus, of course. Believe me, Mr. Prescott, we can take care of you."

Cavanaugh looked back at the row of monitors, where one of the images showed the Taurus at ground level. Able to see partway under the car, he frowned, noticing what appeared to be a shadow under the vehicle. He pointed. "Does that camera have a zoom lens?"

"All of them do." Prescott twisted a dial, enlarging the image on the monitor. The shadow under the Taurus took the shape of a small box. Jesus, Cavanaugh thought, one of the crack addicts must have put it under there.

He blinked as the Taurus exploded.

The roar from the speaker was so loud that the entire room shook. On the screen, chunks of the Taurus crashed onto the concrete, smoke and fire swelling.

Prescott gaped.

A second explosion rocked the room. On a different monitor, the door through which Cavanaugh had entered the building blasted inward, smoke and flames filling the area at the bottom of the stairs. Three men rushed in, but although their hair was matted and their faces were beard-stubbled and filthy, their eyes had neither the blankness of the homeless nor the desperation of drug addicts. These men had eyes as alert as any gunfighter Cavanaugh had ever encountered.

"Is there another way out of here?"

Prescott kept staring at the screen, which showed one of the men aiming a pistol at the elevator door while the other two aimed pistols upward and stormed the stairs.

"Prescott?" Cavanaugh repeated, drawing his weapon.

Prescott kept staring at the screen.

Cavanaugh grabbed him, turned him, and shook him, "For Christ's sake, listen to me. Is there another way out of here?"

Instead of responding, Prescott lunged toward one of the electronic consoles and twisted a dial.

"What are you doing?" Cavanaugh asked.

Prescott stared toward a different screen.

The two men came into view on an upper portion of the stairs. They stopped and aimed upward, looking as if they thought getting in had been too easy, that there had to be traps in the building.

On the monitor that showed the entrance to the building, two other ragged men charged in through the fading smoke from the explosion. They, too, aimed pistols.

They started up the stairs, then paused as had the pair above them. Wary, they glanced behind and below them, seeming to sense danger.

"Have you got the stairwell booby-trapped, is that it?" Cavanaugh asked Prescott.

But on the screen, nothing exploded in the stairwell. No hidden guns went off. No flames erupted from the walls. Even so, the gunmen were obviously disturbed about something. Various monitors showed the man watching the elevator, the two that had just paused on the stairs, and the pair halfway up, who stared apprehensively toward the top as if they knew they were walking into a death trap.

Moisture dripped from their faces. At first, Cavanaugh thought it was from the rain they'd charged through.

Then he realized it was sweat.

One of the gunmen on the stairs suddenly started firing toward the upper level.

Abruptly, the other gunmen on the stairs did the same. At the bottom, the ragged figure watching the elevator kept looking behind him, as if he'd heard a threatening sound. He spun toward the blown-apart door and fired toward the rain.

"What the hell's gong on?" Cavanaugh asked.

Prescott kept twisting the dial, mumbling to himself, as if something had malfunctioned. "Yes." He spun toward Cavanaugh. "There's another way out of here."

Puzzled, Cavanaugh watched Prescott hurry toward the shelves of food. Then he frowned again at the monitors, seeing the gunmen continue firing up the stairs. Two furiously reloaded. The other pair spun to aim behind them. The man on the ground floor kept switching his aim between the elevator and the blown-open door.

A noise in the room distracted Cavanaugh, a scrape as Prescott slid the shelves to the left, revealing a door.

"Where does it lead?"

"The warehouse."

Recalling the army of crack addicts he'd seen when he'd arrived, Cavanaugh wondered how much he could count on Prescott to help. "Do you know how to handle that gun you pointed at me?"

"No."

Cavanaugh wasn't surprised. He picked up the.45 and found that Prescott had aimed it with the safety on. Worse, after Cavanaugh freed the safety and pulled back the slide half an inch, he saw that the firing chamber was empty. Releasing the magazine from the grip, he discovered that it did contain the usual seven rounds, however. After he shoved the magazine back into the grip, he racked a round into the firing chamber, ready for business.