"Another A-plus." Cavanaugh picked up her windbreaker and began to modify that, as well. "I can do that."
"No, this is work I can manage with my injured shoulder. You have your own work."
Jamie eyed him suspiciously. "What work are you talking about?"
8
Wearing the gloves and coveralls they'd bought at the hardware store, Jamie sat behind the Taurus, attaching fog lamps to the back.
"If I could get down there and do that without pulling these stitches, I'd gladly take your place," Cavanaugh said.
"Somehow, you don't sound convincing. Fog lamps are supposed to be on the front. Why am I putting them here?"
"These aren't ordinary fog lamps. They're one-hundred-watt quartz halogens with a candlepower of four hundred and eighty thousand. We'll run the wires to a toggle switch we'll put on the dashboard. Once we get the lamps pointing up toward eye level, we can blind any driver coming after us."
He opened the hood and removed the air filter that had come with the Taurus. "The standard filter's okay, but this K and N improves pickup."
He used the plumber's tubing along with hose clamps to alter the intake system. "This'll get more air to the engine and add horsepower. I phoned a specialty car-parts store in Daytona Beach and ordered a high-speed computer chip to replace the one the car came with."
"Anything else we have to do?"
"Get heavy-duty shocks. Rig the ignition so we can start it easily if we don't have the key. But first, you have to crawl into the trunk," Cavanaugh said.
"What?"
"That wasn't a kinky proposal. We just need to get some measurements."
"Actually, doing it in the trunk sounds intriguing."
"Not with this shoulder."
"I wasn't planning to do it with your shoulder. What are the measurements for?"
"A half-inch plate of steel to stop bullets from going through the trunk and into the car."
9
"Hold still."
"Your hands are cold," Cavanaugh said.
"Quit complaining and relax. This'll be over before you know it."
"You never said that to me before. Reminds me of the teenaged girl in a sex-education class."
"Sex-education class?"
"Yeah, the teacher said, 'Don't ruin your life for fifteen minutes of pleasure,' and the teenaged girl asked, 'Fifteen minutes? How do you make it last that long?'"
"Stop moving," Jamie said. "There. How was that?"
"Didn't feel a thing."
"See? I'm getting good at this." Using sterilized scissors and tweezers, Jamie snipped and removed another stitch. "Looks clean. No sign of infection." She cut and took out another stitch. "You'll have a scar to add to your collection."
"Beauty marks."
After removing the final stitches, Jamie surveyed her work. "Damn, I'm good. The wound's still healing. Here's a bandage to remind you to be careful."
"Oh, I'll be careful." It had been ten days since the fire at the bunker. There had been many things to do, but mostly Cavanaugh had allowed himself to rest and heal, the effort testing his patience. Despite his banter with Jamie, which he felt he owed her, his mood had been dark. In his dreams and often while awake, he suffered vivid mental images of Roberto's bashed-in head, of Chad and Tracy being blown apart, of Duncan's bullet-mutilated face. He remembered gaping at Karen in her wheelchair, her hands clamped against her chest, her face contorted in the rigid aftermath of a death frenzy, the cause of which he was still powerless to explain. But this much Cavanaugh knew beyond question: Prescott was to blame.
"We're as organized as we're going to get. It's time to come back from the grave."
10
The sturdy black man rounded a curve and jogged faster along a straightaway through the suburban Washington park. He wasn't alone. At 6:30 a.m. other joggers were out preparing themselves for the day's stress. Because of a slight chill in the air, the man wore navy leggings and a sweatshirt. The white man who jogged up next to him wore a similar outfit, except the color was gray.
They passed bushes and trees and ducks in a pond. When it was obvious that the white man stayed next to him longer than was usual for a stranger, the black man looked over and almost broke his stride.
"Am I having a religious experience?" the black man asked. His name was John Rutherford. He'd been raised as a Southern Baptist. "Seeing visions? Receiving visitations from the dead?"
"Seeing's believing," Cavanaugh said.
"Yeah, but Thomas still doubted. He wasn't satisfied until he put his hand in the wound in Christ's side."
"I hate to disappoint you, but I don't know you well enough to let you get that familiar. Anyway, I don't have a wound in my side."
The almost-healed wound in Cavanaugh's shoulder ached from running on concrete, but by keeping the sway of his arms to a minimum, he avoided tearing it.
"I heard you were missing," Rutherford said. "Probably dead."
"These pesky rumors. Where'd you hear this one?" As Ca-vanaugh kept pace with Rutherford, sweat slicked his forehead.
"The second in command at Protective Services told me. We were going to offer an assignment to your firm."
Cavanaugh nodded. The government had several superb protective-agent organizations, including the Secret Service, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Diplomatic Security Service, but sometimes personnel shortages required that outside organizations be brought in.
"Seems you, Duncan, and three other operatives dropped off the face of the earth, along with a client," Rutherford said. "One of your safe sites was destroyed."
"Did the second in command tell you which client and which safe site?"
"No way." Rutherford's breath was slightly labored as he and Cavanaugh rounded another curve. "If he'd told me that much, I wouldn't have trusted your firm to work for us. I think the only reason he told me as much as he did was to find out if I'd heard anything."
"And had you?" A dark stain formed on Cavanaugh's sweatshirt.
"Not a whisper."
They came near the pond again and passed more ducks.
"So what's the story?" Rutherford asked.
"Can you keep a secret?"
"If I couldn't, the Bureau would have booted me out a long time ago."
The question was rhetorical, the answer expected. Cavanaugh wouldn't have risked meeting with Rutherford if their history hadn't proven that Rutherford could be trusted.
"Provided it isn't illegal and it won't destroy my career, I'll keep any secret you want."
"The rumors are right. I'm dead," Cavanaugh told him. "You never saw me. You never talked to me."
Rutherford didn't reply for a moment. Sweat dripped from his chin as they reached a straightaway. "What about Duncan and the others?"
"If you see them, you are having a visitation."
"Killed?"
"A couple of times over."
"Who were the other protectors?"
"Chad, Tracy, and Roberto."
"God help them," Rutherford said. "I worked with them all. I knew I could trust them with my life. What happened to your client?"
"That's the problem." Cavanaugh's anger rose. "He's the reason Duncan, Chad, Tracy, and Roberto are dead."
"He got careless? He forced you to expose yourselves needlessly?"
"He turned against us."
Rutherford slowed, left the path, stopped among bushes, and waited for Cavanaugh to do the same. They faced each other. "The man you were protecting…"