"Cute," Cavanaugh said, echoing what the first man had said. He closed the knife and clipped it into his pants pocket. He sat cross-legged on the floor, at the first man's eye level. "You're using the name Kline?"
"It's as good as anything."
"Tell me about Prescott."
Kline didn't answer.
"I'll tell you what I know about him," Cavanaugh said. "Feel free to chime in any time you feel like it."
Cavanaugh told Kline what had happened after the car chase: the arrival at the bunker, the instructions to Prescott about how to disappear, the fire, the helicopter attack, and the other fire at Karen's house. "So, you see, I want him as much as you do. Probably worse. We'd accomplish more if we worked together."
"But our purposes conflict."
"I'm sure we can work around our differences." Cavanaugh studied him. "You look like your arms are starting to hurt. Why don't I make you more comfortable?"
Kline frowned, puzzled, as Cavanaugh brought a captain's chair from the kitchen. Kline frowned even more when Cavanaugh raised him to his feet and thumbed open the Emerson knife.
"I'm going to cut the rope on your wrists," Cavanaugh said. "If you make any move against me, my friend here"-Cavanaugh indicated Rutherford-"who's in a world of hurt and a really foul mood because of the beating your team gave him yesterday, will shoot you."
Rutherford had gone into the kitchen and returned with an empty plastic soft-drink bottle shoved over the barrel of his pistol as a sound suppressor. "I want my tooth back."
It was a tactic that he and Cavanaugh had rehearsed, and it had its intended effect, especially the rigged sound suppressor, causing Kline's eyes to narrow.
"But why invite trouble?" Cavanaugh asked. "We're having a pleasant conversation. We want to cooperate with one another." Cavanaugh stepped behind Kline, cut the rope on his wrists, and told him, "Sit." Kline obeyed.
Cavanaugh retied Kline's wrists, this time to the arms of the captain's chair.
"Comfy?" Cavanaugh asked. "Good. I honestly think we'd have a better chance of finding Prescott if we worked together. It's your turn. Tell me what you know." Kline looked away.
"For starters," Cavanaugh said, "why do you want him so much? He told me a story about addiction research he was doing for the DEA. He was supposed to find a way to block the physical mechanism that causes people to become addicted. Instead, he claimed he found an easy-to-manufacture substance that causes addiction. He said Jesus Escobar somehow found out and tried to grab him to get the formula. He said you guys worked for Escobar. But all that turned out to be a bunch of hooey. The DEA never heard of Prescott, and Escobar was killed two months ago, so who do you guys really work for?"
Kline finally looked back at Cavanaugh. Tension made his European accent-Slavic or possibly Russian-more pronounced. "You know I can't tell you that."
"Maybe I should make you some coffee while we consider the problem."
"Coffee?" Kline tilted his head, puzzled.
"Yeah, there's nothing like a chat over coffee. John, where do you keep it?"
"Above the fridge." He and Jamie looked as puzzled as Kline did. "The grinders next to it. The percolator's next to the toaster on the counter."
"Percolator? What I had in mind was instant coffee," Cavanaugh said.
"Uh, in the cupboard to the right of the stove."
Cavanaugh turned Kline's chair so Kline could watch. Then Cavanaugh went into the kitchen and opened the cupboard, finding a small box that had packets of various kinds of instant coffees. "Let's see. Hazelnut roast, vanilla roast, chocolate roast. Any of that appeal to you?" he asked Kline.
No answer.
"John, you've got to lay off this sweet coffee," Cavanaugh said. "You'll put on so much weight, you won't be able to run it off. Haven't you got anything with some heft to it? Wait a minute. What's this? Mocha Java? Now that sounds like a manly brew."
Cavanaugh opened two packets of it and dumped the powder into a small transparent juice glass. He put very little water in a kettle and set the kettle on the stove, turning the burner to high.
"Won't be long now," he assured Kline. "There's nothing like hot, rich caffeinated coffee to promote conversation. Are you sure you don't want to give me some tidbits right now-about why you want Prescott and about who else would be after him?" Kline continued to look stubborn.
"Ah, well," Cavanaugh said, "I certainly respect your principles. You're definitely not a blabbermouth." The kettle whistled.
Cavanaugh poured what amounted to an ounce and a half of boiling liquid into the juice glass. There was barely enough water to dissolve the two packets of coffee crystals. He gave it a stir, letting Kline see how dark and thick the mixture was. "Nothing limp-wristed about this stuff. It'll put fire in your eyes and hair on your chest."
Kline looked even more perplexed. "You expect me to drink that? What the hell good will that do to make me talk? I'd probably throw it up."
"Drink it? The farthest thing from my mind. And believe me, you won't be throwing it up."
Cavanaugh opened Rutherford's first-aid kit and removed one of the syringes.
Kline's eyes got bigger.
Cavanaugh inserted the syringe in the thick coffee mixture and pulled back the plunger, filling the tube, then pushed the plunger to remove air from the syringe. He started humming "Fly Me to the Moon."
"Hold it," Kline said. "You're not seriously thinking about-"
Cavanaugh interrupted him by ripping Kline's shirt open, fully exposing his neck. Now he was humming "Black Coffee" as he angled the tip of the syringe toward Kline's jugular vein.
"For Christ's sake, stop!" Kline tilted his body toward the opposite side, nearly overturning the chair.
"Watch your language," Rutherford, the Southern Baptist, said seriously.
"All right, all right. Just stop," Kline told Cavanaugh. "You can't expect me to believe you're crazy enough to-"
"Expand your mind, along with your arteries and your vital organs," Cavanaugh said. "I'm going to set your heart racing and blow your brains out from the inside. I figure by the time your pulse gets up to about a hundred and eighty, you might even start to levitate, except you'll be tied to that chair. Now if you'll hold still…"
Cavanaugh put a firm hand on Kline's shoulder and readjusted the syringe's trajectory.
"No!" Kline tilted his body so far to the side that this time the chair did topple. With a thump, he landed on the carpet.
"Hey, have some consideration for the neighbors," Cavanaugh said.
"That stuff'll kill me!" Kline said.
"Kill you? It'll get your metabolism racing so fast, you'll probably self-combust."
Cavanaugh pushed Kline's head against the carpet and slanted the syringe's tip so that it pressed along Kline's jugular.
Kline whispered, trying to minimize his neck movements, sounding as if he'd swallowed ashes: "If you kill me, I can't tell you anything."
"You know what? Part of me doesn't care. Running into you twice was running into you twice too often. I'm pissed about my friends being dead. I'm pissed about Prescott trying to kill me. I'm pissed about what you and your men did to John. I want to get even with somebody, and if you don't intend to cooperate with me the way I cooperated with you, at least I'll get the satisfaction of this."