William Bernhardt - Double Jeopardy

“Did Moroconi get the man’s address from you?”

Mario’s eyes lowered. “I had no choice.”

“Then give it to me, too,” Travis said. “I have to find him. It’s my only hope.”

“I can’t do that.”

“You gave it to Moroconi!”

“Because I had to. I don’t want to do any more damage than has already been done.”

“If you don’t give me the address,” Travis barked, “I won’t catch Moroconi. He’ll remain free.” He paused, allowing the weight of his words to sink into Mario’s brain. “And when he finds out you’re still alive, he’ll be back here for you.”

This threat obviously caused Mario to reconsider, but he remained silent.

“Moreover, if you don’t give me the address right now,” Travis added, “I’m going to sink your fat butt back in the hot tub. And goose up the temperature. So talk !”

A shudder passed through Mario’s body. “The address is beneath the blotter on my desk in the den upstairs. He lives about a hundred miles from here, not too far from Austin. But you’ll never get in. He’s got guards posted who stop everyone who comes in or goes out. He’s got high-tech security equipment. And always a couple of bodyguards. At least.”

“One problem at a time,” Travis muttered. “Just give us—”

Travis was cut off by the ever-more-familiar sound of a bullet whistling overhead. He hadn’t heard the gun fire; that made it all the more disturbing. He grabbed Mario by the neck and slammed him down on the carpet. Cavanaugh followed suit. He heard another bullet sail past.

“Where is he?” Cavanaugh mouthed.

Travis shook his head. “Outside the door, I think.”

Travis pointed to their immediate right, and together they quickly crawled behind the pool table. Unfortunately, the table stood three feet off the ground. All the sniper had to do was crouch and—

Another whizzing sound. Travis heard a bullet smash into a leg of the pool table.

“This won’t cut it,” he whispered.

“What can we do?” Cavanaugh asked.

“Why are you asking me? I don’t know.”

“You’re the ex-cop. What would a cop do?”

Travis grimaced. He heard the soft patter of footsteps on the carpet. Whoever was firing at them was moving closer. “Follow my lead.” He rose up on his knees, pressed a shoulder against the pool table, and shoved. Good—the top separated from the legs, and the legs were screwed to the floor.

Cavanaugh lent her shoulder to the cause. Travis heaved and the tabletop fell forward off its base with a crash. Billiard balls and slate smashed onto the floor. The front legs propped the tabletop up at a forty-five-degree angle, creating a ten-foot-wide shield.

“How’s that for cover?” Travis murmured.

“Better,” Cavanaugh replied. “At least now he’ll have to move away from the door.”

“Unfortunately that doesn’t change the fundamental fact that he’s armed and I’m not. What happened to my gun?”

Cavanaugh shrugged. “I know I set mine down when I started mouth-to-mouth on Mario.”

“Great.”

Mario relaxed the expression of terror plastered across his face long enough to speak. “It’s by the hot tub.”

Travis stared at the hot tub—about twenty very exposed feet to his right. He didn’t see his multistrike weapon. Must be on the other side. The side closest to the door, natch.

“I’m going to make a dive for the hot tub, Cavanaugh. Cover me.”

“Cover you? With what?”

“Use your imagination.”

Cavanaugh clenched her teeth and mumbled something he couldn’t understand. He figured it was just as well. He crouched down near the end of the table and prepared to spring out.

He glanced back over his shoulder. “I’m ready.”

He was startled to see Cavanaugh grit her teeth and grab a billiard ball. “Take this, you sorry son of a bitch!” she shouted. She reared over the tabletop and hurled the ball toward the door.

Travis heard the projectile clatter and ricochet around some exercise equipment, and heard their assailant drop to the floor. Good enough. He dove away from the table and scrambled toward the hot tub. He landed on his hands and executed a somersault that brought him right beside his gun. Not bad for a fat ex-cop. He grabbed his gun and scrambled back to the safer side of the hot tub, hugging the carpet.

Travis heard another bullet zoom over his head, this one much closer than before. Much too close for comfort. He flattened himself and tried to figure out what he was going to do next.

He heard a mechanical grinding sound coming from the door. No bullets followed. Something was wrong with their assailant’s gun.

From his prone position, Travis saw Cavanaugh cautiously peer over the top of the pool table, “His gun is jammed!” she shouted. “ Go !”

Travis took her at her word. He sprang to his feet, cocked the hammer back, aimed the barrel at the stocking-capped figure in the doorway, and …

And he could not pull the trigger.

“Goddamn it,” Cavanaugh yelled. “Fire!”

He couldn’t do it. His hands trembled, his fingers refused to move. He stared at the man in the doorway, fully aware that at any second he might clear the action and fire that gun. It didn’t help. He still couldn’t do it.

“Travis—do something!”

The man in the stocking cap threw down his gun, pulled a long, curved knife out of his belt, and ran toward Travis. Travis hurled his weapon at the man’s head. While the man ducked, Travis rushed him. Travis hit him around the waist and sent him careening backward. The man hit the wall, lurched away in the opposite direction, then tumbled backward into the boiling hot tub. He screamed.

The man beat his arms furiously, trying desperately to get out of the water. Travis knocked the knife out of his hand, then held him down by the shoulders. Cavanaugh ran out from behind the pool table, grabbed her gun, and trained it on the man in the tub. “Don’t kill him,” she said.

“I’m not letting him out just so he can come after us again,” Travis grunted. “As long as he’s fighting me, he stays in the water.”

As if on cue, the man stopped struggling. Travis grabbed him behind the shoulders and placed a half Nelson lock around his neck. Once he was sure he had the man under control, he hauled him out of the water. Cavanaugh kept her gun trained on his skull the whole time.

The man’s face was red and flushed and he looked as if he hurt. “Look at all this high-tech equipment he’s packing,” Cavanaugh said. She searched him, then systematically removed every gadget and weapon he carried, much of it now waterlogged and ruined. “This is the same man who attacked me at the library.”

“Persistent son of a bitch,” Travis muttered.

Cavanaugh ripped the man’s stocking cap off his head. Travis’s eyes widened.

It was Curran McKenzie. Mary Ann McKenzie’s brother.

65

6:30 P.M.

ONCE TRAVIS’S EYES HAD retracted back into his head, he murmured, “This is the rape victim’s brother.”

“I know,” Cavanaugh said, nodding. “I saw him in the courtroom, remember? Just after he talked to you. I believe you described him as an obnoxious wimp.”

“Well, I got the obnoxious part right.” He tightened his grip around Curran’s neck. “Where’d you learn the commando tactics?”

“In the army,” Curran spat out. “Green Beret, for your information.”

“Where’d you get the spiffy CIA-issue equipment?”

Curran struggled futilely against Travis’s grip. “I’ve maintained a few connections.”

“Great. A man of mystery.” He withdrew a canister from Curran’s belt. “What’s this? A time bomb disguised as a roll of film?”