David Morrell: The Protector

Rutherford went over to them. Cavanaugh followed.

On the far side of the van, a middle-aged male civilian, one of Prescott's neighbors, showed the SWAT commander a diagram he'd made of the interior of Prescott's house. The muted red flashlight the commander used to study it couldn't be seen beyond the van.

"How recently were you in there?" the commander asked.

"Five weeks ago. Just before the previous owner moved. Jay and I were very close. It's a damned shame he got sick."

"Any construction work since then? Workmen showing up? That sort of thing?"

"None that I saw."

"Okay, so we've got a living room past the front door," the commander said. "Media room, spare bedroom, and bathroom to the right. To the left, the kitchen, two more bedrooms and bathrooms. A home office. Friggin' big house. These are French doors leading off the living room?"

"Yes. There's a terrace in back. A waist-high wall looks over the cliff to the water."

"What's this area in back of the garage?"

"Laundry room."

"And this next to it?"

"A darkroom. Jay and I like-" The man became more somber and corrected himself. "Liked to take photographs, until Jay got sick."

The commander showed the diagram to his team and explained the procedures they would use to enter. When there weren't any questions, he nodded to Rutherford. "Ready when you are."

"I need to emphasize we want him alive," Rutherford said.

So the government intends to make a deal with him, Cavanaugh thought.

"Is he armed?"

"To the best of our knowledge, he has an AR-15 converted to full automatic. He also has probably more than one 9-millimeter pistol."

"If he fires at us…"

"You have tear gas. You have flash-bangs. If you absolutely need to defend yourselves, do your best to wound him."

"He also has a Kevlar vest," Cavanaugh said.

The SWAT team turned toward Cavanaugh and studied him as best they could in the shadows.

"You're the bodyguard?" the commander asked.

Cavanaugh ignored the reference. "I've had several run-ins with him. He's extremely dangerous."

The commander looked toward Rutherford. "You said the target was a biochemist."

"That's correct."

"A wanna-be who thinks he's a runner-and-gunner."

"And who's killed five people that we know of," Cavanaugh said. "He's intelligent. He has an aptitude for this. Don't underestimate him."

"We'll toss him so many flash-bangs, he won't hear for a week."

"Were you told about the weapon he developed?" Cavanaugh asked.

"Some kind of fear thing?"

"An aerosol-delivered hormone."

"Hormone?" The commander gave Cavanaugh a "Get real" look. "Most of my team's been doing this for seven years. A biochemist is almost a vacation after some of what we've rammed into. We've sort of gotten accustomed to being afraid. To handling it, I mean."

"I understand," Cavanaugh said.

The commander studied Cavanaugh as if he couldn't possibly have a background that allowed him to understand what members of a SWAT team felt.

"But unless you've experienced this thing, you can't realize how powerful it is," Cavanaugh said. "If you smell something pungent…"

"It'll be his bowels letting go when he panics at hell on earth storming into his house," the commander said.

"I think I should go in first," Cavanaugh said.

"What?" Rutherford asked.

"I know what to expect." Cavanaugh dreaded the emotions he would feel when he confronted the smell of the hormone, but he couldn't let these men go first. They had no idea of what would happen to them. "I've got a better chance to-"

"Look at yourself," the commander said. "As messed up as you are, you're in no shape to go in there. This guy already beat you once tonight, so what makes you think he won't do it again? I'm sure you're a good bodyguard, but this is a case where professionals should do the heavy lifting." The commander turned to his men. "Let's go."

As angry as Cavanaugh felt, he gave them credit. When they separated into two groups and shifted past the barricade, heading through the trees and shadows on each side of the street, they looked as trained and experienced as any SWAT group he'd seen. In a very few seconds, they were invisible.

Slowly, one by one, the lights went off in Prescott's house.

"What the…" someone said.

"Maybe he's finally going to bed."

"Or the lights are on timers," a detective said.

"You've got to stop this," Cavanaugh told Rutherford.

In the van, a policeman with headphones murmured, "The commander says they'll wait ten minutes and see what else happens. If the target is, in fact, going to bed, all the better-Prescott'll be nice and sleepy when they burst in."

Colder, Cavanaugh stared at the outdoor lights of the now-dark house. He felt the apprehension he'd have suffered if he'd been with the SWAT team.

Ten minutes passed. At 4:40, the man with the headphones leaned from the van. "They're entering."

Cavanaugh watched dark figures emerge from the shadows. Rapidly, they reached the glare of the outdoor lights. Racing across the front lawn, two of them carried a compact battering ram, whose handles they gripped and crashed against the front door, breaking it in. Cavanaugh assumed that the other half of the team was using a similar battering ram to smash in through the back. Weapons ready, the helmeted men charged inside. Strobe lights flashed behind the curtained windows. A siren blared.

The shooting and screaming started.

"My God, what's happening?" Rutherford said. "What's that siren? What are those strobes?"

"Prescott," Cavanaugh said.

The shooting and screaming worsened.

"Call for backup!" Rutherford yelled to the radio operator in the van. He drew his pistol. "We've got to get in there! We've got to help them!"

"They're shooting each other," Cavanaugh said.

"What?"

"Anything that moves! If you go in there, they'll shoot you, too!"

"But we can't just let-"

The shooting stopped. The screams diminished as the siren persisted. The strobes continued to flash behind the windows, their pulse so rapid that it made Cavanaugh nauseated to look at them.

"For God's sake, don't go in there until I tell you," he said. "Somebody give me a pistol!"

"You're not authorized."

Cavanaugh grabbed a flashlight from the van. As he did, he noticed a pump-action shotgun lying on a table and grabbed it also.

"Hey!" the radio operator said.

Before anyone could stop him, Cavanaugh hurried past the barricade. He reached the rustic house on the right and moved from tree to tree through the darkness, darting across the big lots toward a utility pole that Prescott's outdoor lights illuminated against the night sky.

The pole was to the right of Prescott's house, and the closer Cavanaugh came to the strobes and the siren, the more he slowed. When he reached the final house on the right, he veered along its murky side and crept through its narrow backyard, where a waist-high stone wall separated him from a cliff that dropped to the ocean. The siren almost overwhelmed the pounding of the surf as Cavanaugh came to a tall redwood fence that separated this property from Prescott's. Past the fence, the utility pole stood next to Prescott's house. A large gray transformer capped it.

Cavanaugh considered climbing the fence, dropping to the ground, and searching for the exterior breaker box, which would usually be next to the electrical meter. A switch inside the box would shut off the power to the strobes and the siren. But the thought of raising his head over that fence and not knowing what might confront him made him hesitate. Besides, he took for granted that the box would be locked and that Prescott would have rigged some kind of device to incapacitate anybody who might try to open it and cut off power to his house. Given the time pressure, there was only one choice.