"What would that accomplish?"

"The opponent could discover where the protectors live, whether they have relatives and so on. You see the liability?"

Prescott's ample chin wavered as he nodded. "The opponent could kill the bodyguards where they live, when they're off duty, when they're not as alert."

"And the new team the client hires wouldn't be up to speed on how to maintain his security. The client becomes a viable target," Cavanaugh said.

Prescott nodded again. "Or else the opponent kidnaps the bodyguards' relatives and puts pressure on the bodyguards to lessen the client's security."

"You catch on quick. People close to me can't be threatened if the bad guys don't know who the people close to me are. Because the bad guys don't know who I am," Cavanaugh said.

"You have a family?"

"No," Cavanaugh replied, lying. "You referred to 'bodyguards.' That's not what I am."

"Then…?"

"The technical term is protective agent."

"What's the distinction?"

"Bodyguards are thugs. They're what mobsters use. Crude muscle."

"But what you do, as you've proven, requires sophisticated talents. Thank you. What you went through to save me is the bravest thing I've ever seen."

"No," Cavanaugh said. "Not brave."

"I can't think what else to call it."

"Conditioned."

Between them, the skinhead's cell phone buzzed.

16

Prescott flinched.

The phone buzzed again.

"Press the answer button," Cavanaugh said. "Then give it to me."

Uneasy, Prescott obeyed.

Steering expertly with his left hand, Cavanaugh held the phone against his right ear. "Pizza Hut."

"Cute,"a sandpapery voice said.

"Thanks."

"Not the Pizza Hut thing. I meant about setting fire to your car and stealing ours."

"I know what you meant."

Prescott watched intently, trying to figure out what Ca-vanaugh was hearing.

"This won't stop us. We'll keep coming," the voice said. "I expect that," Cavanaugh said into the phone. "You're not a cop. You'd have called for backup. Instead, you kept clear of police cars. You must be private security. Give it up. You're way out of your league."

"Gee, I thought I'd done pretty good so far." "Did Prescott tell you who you're dealing with?" "He hasn't had time to tell me anything," Cavanaugh lied. The transmission was weak. The shots had made his ears ring enough that he had to press the phone tighter against his ear so he could distinguish what the voice said next.

"If you don't know anything, we can cut you some slack. Give him to us, and we'll let you go."

"Say it again, this time as if you mean it." The voice sounded weary. "You'd be dead now if you hadn't been near Prescott. This has to be the only time the guy we were after was a shield for his bodyguard." "Protector." "What?"

"I'm not a bodyguard."

"Whatever." The voice became harsher. "The next time I see you, you'd better pray you're close to Prescott. Otherwise, I'll put a bullet through your head. Does that sound like I mean it?" "Is that the reason you phoned? To make cheap threats?" The voice became silent.

Cavanaugh suddenly understood what was going on. "Lots of cheese, right?" "What?"

"Your pizza will be ready in fifteen minutes." Cavanaugh risked taking his eyes off the road long enough to press the disconnect button.

A pickup truck loaded with junk drove past him. He lowered his window and tossed the phone into the back of the truck.

"What are you doing?" Prescott asked.

"Escobar's men didn't call just for the hell of it. They want to make certain we're with the phone."

"But why would-"

"The phone must have some kind of location transmitter in it. They'll follow it, hoping it leads them to us. Now it'll take them nowhere. For all I know, this car has a location transmitter also, but right now, there's nothing I can do about that."

"Why didn't you kill this car's driver?" Prescott asked.

"What?" Cavanaugh frowned at the unexpected question.

"Back at the mall, you took a chance when you told him to run. He might have reached for his weapon," Prescott said.

"A dead man in the car would have slowed us. I'd have had to pull him from behind the steering wheel. The other men might have found us before we could drive away."

"Would you have killed him if he hadn't been in the car?" Prescott asked.

"If he gave me a reason. Otherwise… I'm a protector, not a killer."

The rain lessened.

Cavanaugh took his phone from his jacket and pressed the recall button.

"Global Protective Services." Duncan's voice was tense.

The phone remained in scrambler mode. "I had to switch cars. We're in a black Pontiac."

"Can you make it to the Holiday Inn near the airport? I'm here with some of your friends."

"Good," Cavanaugh said. "I can always use friends."

PART TWO. Threat Avoidance

1

The rain had lessened to a drizzle by the time Cavanaugh, following Duncan's instructions, reached the Holiday Inn on Route 17, a half mile from Teterboro Airport. Duncan waited under the carport at the motel's entrance. He wore a raincoat and hat. His hands were in the coat's pockets, one of them, no doubt, holding a pistol. His trim mustache emphasized how pinched his lips were. With his straight military posture and intense eyes, he exuded a focus that made Cavanaugh pleased to rely on him.

The moment Cavanaugh drove under the carport and stopped next to Duncan, a gray van suddenly appeared behind them.

Prescott flinched. "They caught us."

"No," Cavanaugh said. "It's fine."

Glancing in the rearview mirror, he saw two men and a woman, all three familiar to him, all wearing rain slickers, step from the van. They kept their hands beneath the slickers, presumably on weapons, while they scanned the area around them, paying particular attention to the highway beyond the parking lot. Five seconds later, everything looking satisfactory, one of the men approached Cavanaugh's side of the car.

With that all-clear sign, Cavanaugh pressed the car's unlock button.

Instantly, Duncan opened the passenger door and looked in. "Mr. Prescott?"

Prescott looked dumbfounded.

"I'm Duncan Wentworth. Global Protective Services. We spoke on the phone. Come with me, please."

Before Prescott seemed aware of it, Duncan had guided him from the car. Meanwhile, the woman and the remaining man flanked Prescott, Duncan leading the way, escorting him to the van.

Cavanaugh got out of the car.

"How ya doing?" The trim man who waited on the driver's side chewed gum.

"Better than I was a half hour ago."

"You can relax now. Leave the show to us."

"Looking forward to it. The car might have a location transmitter."

"By the time they find it, it'll be far from the airport. They'll never suspect how you got away."

"The pistol on the seat belongs to the assault team." Cavanaugh pulled the.45 from under his belt. "This belongs to Prescott. I have no idea where else it's been."

The man, whose name was Eddie, nodded. The rule was, you never kept a weapon whose history you didn't know. If you were caught with it, ballistics might prove that the weapon had been used in various shootings. The police would have every reason to believe you were implicated in them.

"These pieces'll soon be in pieces in a sewer," Eddie said.

Amused by the pun, Cavanaugh stepped aside and let Eddie get behind the steering wheel. "They all wore gloves."

Eddie tightened his own gloves. "No way to use fingerprints to identify them. So it won't matter if I wipe down your prints."

"The only places we touched are in the front seat."