The Protector (2003) (9 page)

Cavanaugh braked, put the car in reverse, and started backing away, but not before a man on the passenger side lowered the window and leaned out into the rain, aiming a pistol with a silencer on it. Cavanaugh didn't hear the shot, but he did hear the bullet's impact against the radiator.

Steam rose from the puncture.
Whump.
A second bullet hit the radiator. The assault team had learned from the way Cavanaugh had disabled the first car by firing the .45 at the engine and the radiator. The pistol the passenger used wasn't large enough to be a .45. It wouldn't damage the engine as much, but it would definitely play hell with the radiator.

Backing swiftly, Cavanaugh swung the steering wheel, pivoting the sedan 180 degrees. In the limited space, on wet pavement, he couldn't execute the backward half spin as neatly as he was capable of doing. His right front fender glanced off a parked van's taillight, sending a shudder through the sedan. Even so, in a rush, he corrected the steering and now faced the mall instead of the pursuing car. He rammed the gearshift into forward and sped along the row.

But as rain suppressed the steam from the radiator, Cavanaugh felt his chest cramp when a woman holding an umbrella stepped from between cars. She walked halfway across the open area and froze at the sight of Cavanaugh's car rocketing toward her.

Chapter 14.

Never look at what you're trying to avoid. Always look at where you want the car to go. Cavanaugh's instructors had drilled that rule into him at the Bill Scott Raceway in West Virginia, where Global Protective Services and various intelligence agencies sent their operators for training in evasive driving.

"Why is it that, in many accidents, cars get hit directly on the side or the front, as if there wasn't any attempt to evade them?" Duncan had demanded from the passenger seat.

Cavanaugh hadn't been able to answer, too busy rounding a curve at 120 miles an hour.

"Why is it that if a driver hits a patch of ice and skids off the road, the only telephone pole for a hundred yards or the only tree in a field will be what that driver slams into square on?"

Again, Cavanaugh hadn't been able to answer, too busy feeling the hum and pulse of his car's tires, knowing that if the hum sounded any higher, if the pulse got any faster, his tires would lose their grip on the curve and he'd fly off the raceway.

Duncan had answered for him. "Because the driver looks at the car that veers in front of him, or the driver looks at the telephone pole at the side of the road, or the driver looks at the tree in the middle of the field, and although the driver wants to avoid them, he hits the damned things. Why does he hit them?"

"Because he looks at them," Cavanaugh had finally managed to answer, speeding out of the curve.

"Yes. You steer where your eyes lead you. If you look at what you're trying to avoid, you'll head in that direction."

Suddenly, a large cardboard box had hurtled across the track in front of Cavanaugh. Startled, he'd looked at it and almost steered toward it. With a flick of his eyes, he'd stared forward again and managed to remain on the track. His speeding car had veered only slightly as he passed where the box flew into a ditch. He thought he'd seen a rope on the box.

"Did somebody hide at the side of the track and yank that box across?" Cavanaugh had rushed into another curve.

"Eighty percent of the beginning students here see that box and follow it into the ditch," Duncan had replied. "So what's the lesson?"

"Look at where you want to go, not at what you're afraid you'll hit."

"Yes!"

Now Cavanaugh stared past the paralyzed woman toward rain splashing a puddle beyond her.

Don't move, lady.

Cavanaugh stepped on the brakes, feeling their pulses through the pedal, judging their increasing frequency. At what he estimated was 98 percent stopping power, he kept his foot steady. Any more pressure and the brakes would lock, making it impossible for him to control the direction of the sedan. But as long as the brakes weren't locked, he could steer the car while reducing speed.

He was so close to the paralyzed woman that he saw how huge the pupils of her eyes had become as he twisted the steering wheel to the right.

No! Don't look at her! Look at the rain in the puddle beyond her!

Cavanaugh felt the car threaten to slide out of control on the wet pavement. At once, the sedan shifted to the right the way he wanted. Continuing to stare toward where he wanted to go, toward the puddle, he twisted the steering wheel to the left now, veering around the woman, sensing her umbrella zip past him as his car reached the puddle and he released the brake.

For a heart-skipping moment, as Cavanaugh jerked his gaze up toward his rearview mirror, he feared that the pursuing car would hit her, but the near miss had broken the woman's paralysis. She raced toward cars at the side just before the black car sped past her, splashing water from a puddle, drenching her.

Wary of other pedestrians who might suddenly appear, Cavanaugh sped along the row heading toward the mall. He steered to the left, toward one of the mall's entrances, a group of glass doors beckoning on Prescott's side of the car.

"Prescott, open your door! We're bailing out!"

"But--"

"Do it!" Cavanaugh skidded to a stop in front of the doors. He grabbed the Sig and the .45. "Now!"

Behind him, he heard the black car speeding close as he and Prescott charged into the mall.

Chapter 15.

Two levels high, the place was warm, dry, and bright, packed with shoppers, loud with conversations, but all Cavanaugh paid attention to was an electronics store immediately on his left.

"In there!" he told Prescott.

The black car would stop at the rusted sedan, Cavanaugh knew. The three passengers would rush into the mall. The driver would stay with the car and use his cell phone to keep in touch with the gunmen as they tried to find where Cavanaugh and Prescott had gone. That way, the driver could be alerted to speed to another section of the mall if Cavanaugh and Prescott tried to leave via other doors.

Urging Prescott toward the electronics store, Cavanaugh shoved the .45 under his belt. Frantic to get out of sight before the gunmen rushed into the mall, he held the Sig close to him, hiding it. He ejected its empty magazine, put it in a pocket, shoved in a fresh one from the pouch on the left side of his belt, and pressed the lever that allowed the slide on top to snap forward, chambering a round. Moving, he did all this without thinking, with a sureness that came from hundreds of training exercises.

A young clerk in the electronics store looked puzzled by the haste with which Cavanaugh and Prescott entered, water dripping from them. "May I help you?"

Holding the Sig out of sight beneath his jacket, Cavanaugh tugged Prescott past the clerk, past harshly lit rows of televisions, video tape recorders, and DVD players. "What we're looking for is in the back of the store."

The clerk hurried to follow. "If you'll show me what it is, I'll be glad to help."

"Great." Cavanaugh and Prescott squeezed past customers, approaching a counter in the rear.

The counter had a door on the left. Cavanaugh nudged Prescott past the counter and opened the door.

"Sir!" the clerk said. "Customers aren't allowed in the storeroom!"

"But this is what we're looking for." Pulling Prescott into the storeroom, Cavanaugh closed the door and locked it.

"Sir!" a muffled voice objected.

Cavanaugh spun toward palely illuminated shelves stacked with boxes containing VHS and DVD players. "Let's go, Prescott."

Hearing the knob being turned and then someone pounding on the door, Cavanaugh headed toward a metal door on the opposite wall. He'd seen the outside of that door when he'd stopped at the mall's entrance. He knew that the law required exterior doors in commercial establishments to have locks that could be easily freed so that people wouldn't be trapped if there was a fire. This door was secured by a simple dead bolt.

He twisted the lock's knob.

While the gunmen searched the mall, Cavanaugh and Prescott rushed out into the rain. At the curb, the black car, its engine running, was parked behind the rusted sedan, as Cavanaugh expected. The skinhead driver stared toward the glass doors through which his companions had hurried, again as Cavanaugh expected.

By the time the driver noticed movement next to him, Cavanaugh had run in a crouch through the gloom. Using the rusted sedan and the steam from it to conceal his approach, he drew the .45, which was useful to him now only as a blunt object he could afford to risk damaging, and slammed its barrel against the car's passenger window. Beads of safety glass burst inward over the startled skinhead as Cavanaugh aimed his Sig at him and saw that the man's cell phone and pistol were on the seat next to him, along with a Zippo lighter and a pack of cigarettes. The motor kept running.

"Out!" Cavanaugh told him.

With his gloved hands on the steering wheel, the frightened skinhead glanced toward the pistol on the seat.

"Out!" Cavanaugh shouted.

Terrified, the skinhead continued to stare at the pistol on the seat.

Cavanaugh pulled the Sig's trigger and blew a hole in the ceiling.

Flinching, the skinhead hurried from the car.

"Run!" Cavanaugh fired above the driver's bare scalp, making him race faster through the rain as he headed along the side of the mall.

"Prescott, get in!"

As Prescott obeyed, Cavanaugh ran around to the open driver's door, but before he got in, he grabbed the cigarette lighter off the seat.

He ignited it and threw it under the back of the sedan, where the lighter was protected from the rain and where gasoline from the perforated fuel tank had pooled. Immediately, vapor erupted into flames that spread along the bottom of the sedan. He hurried into the black car, put the gearshift into drive, and sped away.

Looking in his rearview mirror, he saw the rusted sedan heave as its gas tank, filled mostly with fumes, detonated. It didn't explode, contrary to popular belief. No huge fireball. No roar as if tons of TNT had gone off. Just a
whump
and an energetic burst of flame. In fact, if the gas tank had contained mostly fuel, there wouldn't have been enough oxygen for it to explode. The car would have kept burning only on the outside.

Taking one last look at his rearview mirror, Cavanaugh saw three angry men charge out of the mall. It seemed to him that, like the skinhead driver, they wore gloves. Then he reached the street beyond the parking lot and couldn't see them any longer.

He sped toward the ramp that led back to the highway. It was a luxury to have a car with an intact windshield and two functioning wipers.

Prescott's bulky chest heaved. He clamped his hands to it.

"Are you all right?" Cavanaugh accessed the highway, staying in the right lane, trying to blend with traffic. "You're not having a heart attack, are you?"

"No. Just can't get my . . . Out of breath."

"Out of condition," Cavanaugh said. "You've got to take better care of yourself." To calm Prescott, Cavanaugh prompted him to imagine a future scenario, one in which he'd be safe. "After we make you disappear, you'll have plenty of chances to get some exercise."

"Exercise. Even
that
would be welcome."

In the distance, yet another group of sirens wailed. Although Cavanaugh wanted to get to the Teterboro airport as fast as possible, he kept his speed under the limit so he wouldn't attract attention.

"It's good to be somewhere dry." Again Cavanaugh was trying to calm Prescott.

"And warm."

"Yes." Cavanaugh's wet clothes were cold against his skin. The driver had kept the car's heater on. Cavanaugh felt air from it waft over him.

Prescott shivered.

"Turn the heater up," Cavanaugh said. "Adjust the blower as high as it'll go."

Hands shaking, Prescott fumbled at the controls on the dashboard. "You set fire to the car as--what, a distraction?"

"Partly. The police will have to waste time while they deal with the fire and try to figure out what happened."

"You said 'partly.' " Prescott's puffy forehead wrinkled. "You had another reason?"

"Our fingerprints." Cavanaugh again checked his rearview mirror. "Originally, I planned to abandon the car in the parking lot. It wouldn't have been noticed for a while. We'd have had a chance to wipe our prints before we ran from the area and called for help. But then the other car showed up and . . . This way, with the fire, we don't have to worry about our prints. Believe me, the police
would
have dusted for them, and they
would
have been able to identify us. Not a good idea when
you
want to disappear and
I
want to stay invisible." "Cavanaugh." "What?"