The Naked Edge

by David Morrell

  The gray-haired woman set down her rolling pin, pulled a Kleenex from her apron, tore it in two, and wadded the halves into her ears.

  The screen door banged shut as Cavanaugh and Jamie walked toward a shooting area next to a barn. Feeling the intense sunlight, they stopped at a weathered wooden table and faced metal targets twenty-five yards away, a mound behind them. Each target had the outline of a human head and torso.

  Cavanaugh opened the case, took out the pistol, and showed Jamie that there wasn't a magazine in it. Then he locked back the slide to reveal that there wasn't a round in the firing chamber.

  “Cold gun?”

  “Cold gun,” she agreed.

  He set the pistol and the gear bag on the table. Then he opened the box of ammunition. With practiced efficiency, he and Jamie loaded ten rounds into three magazines.

  “It always amazes me that you don't break your fingernails,” Cavanaugh said.

  “That's how little attention you pay. Hanging around with you, I'd don't have any fingernails. So tell me about the P-2000.”

  “Even Goldilocks would like it.” Cavanaugh showed Jamie three polymer strips labeled S, L, or XL. A strip on the back of the weapon's grip was labeled M.

  “You're telling me you can size the grip . . . ?”

  “To fit the hand. Try it.”

  Although the pistol was still “cold,” Cavanaugh approved of the way Jamie pointed it down range, as if it were loaded.

  “Not quite comfortable,” she said. “Slightly too big for my hand.”

  “Then we'll reduce the grip.” Cavanaugh pulled a hammer and a punch from the equipment bag. With a few taps, he removed a pin from the strip. He took it off and attached the one marked S. “Now try it.”

  “Perfect,” Jamie said.

  Cavanaugh was fascinated by the problem of hands fitting grips because his own hand was small in comparison to his six-foot frame. Prior to his Delta Force training, he'd been obligated to use the Army's standard sidearm, Beretta's fifteen-round nine millimeter. For a magazine to hold that many rounds, it needed to have two columns of ammunition. The result was a grip too large for him. He'd managed to compensate and control his aim, but like someone forced to wear tight shoes for a long time, he was now obsessed with proper size and comfort.

  “Put some rounds through it,” he suggested.

  “Ladies first? Gosh.” Jamie shoved a magazine into the grip and pressed a lever on the side. A similar lever was on the opposite side, making the weapon ambidextrous, another rarity. The slide, which had been locked back, rammed home, chambering a round.

  “I need my fashion accessories,” she told him.

  They put on their protective glasses and ear guards, then approached the targets, stopping ten yards away, a standard shooting distance. Most gunfights occurred within half that space.

  Jamie raised the pistol, both arms straight out, both hands solidly on the grip, both thumbs pointed along the side as a further way of aligning the barrel with the target.

  Cavanaugh considered the freedom with which she lifted her arms. No evident discomfort, no stiffness to indicate her bullet wound five months earlier.

  She pulled the trigger.

  6

  Hidden among the trees on the ridge, the spotter frowned toward the back of the lodge. The target and the woman were out of sight behind a barn

  Interesting that I want to objectify him by calling him “the target” instead of using his name. Doesn't seem a day older. Kept in shape. Picked a damned good-looking wife.

  You son of a bitch.

  The spotter unclipped a polished ebony knife from his pocket, thumbing the blade open and closing it. “Target practice,” he said in response to the gunshots.

  “A handgun,” the sniper commented.

  “Yes. Sounds like a nine millimeter. Must be a metal target. Hear the bullets hitting it?”

  “Accurate shooter.”

  “Oh, he's definitely an accurate shooter,” the spotter said. “That's why we're up here and not down there.”

  The sniper counted. “Nine, ten, eleven, twelve.”

  “Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.”

  “Large magazine. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. Hell of a large magazine. You know any handguns that hold that many rounds?”

  “No,” the spotter said. “After ten, a slight pause. Hard to notice. That's when the magazine got changed.”

  “Damned fast magazine change.”

  “Twenty-two. Twenty-three. After twenty, another slight pause.”

  “Yeah, a super-fast magazine change,” the sniper agreed. “Well, I'm here to blast his eye out at seven-hundred yards, not have a gunfight with him.”

  Amid the shots echoing across the canyon, they heard an approaching rumble.

  7

  Ear guards muffle sounds but don't eliminate them. Cavanaugh listened to the rhythmic thunder and peered toward the southern rim of the canyon, from behind which a helicopter appeared, its dragonfly shape getting larger, silhouetted against the cobalt sky.

  Jamie lowered the pistol and glanced at her watch. “He's early.”

  “Yeah.” Cavanaugh took off his ear guards. “A half hour. I was hoping he wouldn't come at all.”

  “You still don't know what he wants?”

  “Only that he said it's important. But I can guess. He plans to offer me a job.”

  As the helicopter roared closer, Cavanaugh was able to read the name stenciled in red across the side: Global Protective Services. Memories rushed through him . . . the clients he'd protected, some wealthy and powerful, others ordinary people whom he'd persuaded GPS to help, all sharing the common denominator that they were prey . . . the protective agents he'd worked with, all of them linked by their hatred of predators and their devotion to being guardians, even at the cost of their lives.

  Jamie said something, but the growing din of the chopper prevented him from hearing her. Or perhaps it was the memories.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Are you going to take the job?”

  Preoccupied, Cavanaugh reached under his loose denim shirt and removed his knife from its sheath on the left side of his belt. A rugged utility knife, useful for work around the ranch, it was a gift from his friend, Gil Hibben, commemorating Gil's induction into the Knifemaker's Hall of Fame. It had the balance for what Cavanaugh did next. Releasing the emotions that memories of his dead friends had caused, he drew back his arm and hurled the blade toward a post fifteen feet away, expertly judging the number of flips the knife had to make.

  It struck solidly, the force of his throw and his emotions embedding it.

  “No,” he said. “I won't take the job.”

  “I think you should.”

  The chopper was nearer, louder.

  Ignoring it, Cavanaugh turned toward Jamie. “Five months ago, you nearly died. I still have nightmares about it.”

  “You didn't force me to go along. I made a choice. It wasn't your fault I was shot.”

  “I'm never going to put you at risk again.”

  “But a lot of people need help.”

  “Somebody else will have to give it to them.”

  The helicopter hovered over a section of grass between the barn and the lodge.

  “We'd better not be rude and keep him waiting,” Cavanaugh said.

  “In other words, you're changing the subject.”

  Cavanaugh shrugged. He retrieved his knife, then followed her to the weathered table, where they put their eye-and-ear protection into the equipment bag.

  Jamie dropped the magazine from the pistol and caught it in the air.

  Impressed, Cavanaugh reloaded it, not looking where the helicopter landed, the roar of its engine diminishing.

  “Now we are being rude,” Jamie said.

  “Do you suppose it's a clue that I don't want to talk to him?”

  8

  “Early,” the sniper said.

  “Yeah.” The spotter kept opening his knife and closing it.

&
nbsp; “Complicates things. I told you I could have done it when he got out of the car. Now—”

  “Now we'll just have to wait a little longer.” The spotter readjusted the radio bud in his ear, listening harder. “The backup team isn't in position to cut the phone line yet.”

  Two men got out of the chopper.

  “Getting crowded,” the sniper said.

  9

  The first man who climbed down from the helicopter was forty-three, but his permanently pensive expression created wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and mouth, making him look older. His dark hair was as immaculately cared for as his handmade shoes and his custom-tailored suit. His broad shoulders and proud chest gave him a further imposing look. He carried a leather briefcase that shone with polish. His contact lenses had a similar sheen, the intelligence in his eyes magnified by them. What his smile lacked in warmth was offset by the brilliance of his perfectly capped teeth.

  “William.” Cavanaugh shook hands with him.

  The man's last name was Faraday. A ruthless corporate attorney, he didn't just defeat his opponents’ clients but also destroyed them, in the process acquiring numerous enemies. Cavanaugh had once saved his life when a disgraced executive hired someone to try to kill him. In gratitude, William did much of Global Protective Service's legal work in exchange for ready access to world-class protectors.

  “You remember Jamie,” Cavanaugh said.

  “I do.” William shook her hand. They'd met when he prepared their wills. “Have you recovered from your injury?”

  “Yes. Thanks for asking.”

  William nodded, as if not accustomed to displaying soft human emotions or being complimented for it.

  “Angelo,” Cavanaugh said to the chopper's pilot. “It's been too long.”

  “Since Puerto Vallarta,” the husky man replied, “and that stock market analyst we protected. Remember how he was afraid angry investors were waiting for him behind every corner.”

  “Hell, one of them was.” Cavanaugh shook his hand warmly. “How are the llamas you were raising?”

  “They were sissies. They never bred.”

  “You're sure you had male and female?”

  “You think I can't tell the difference? They spent more time spitting than trying to fornicate. Right in my eye. One of them spat right here.” Angelo used a middle finger to point at his eye.

  Cavanaugh couldn't help laughing.

  “Then they jumped the fence. By the time I found them, they'd been run over by a cement truck. If I'd been smart, I'd have eaten them instead of trying to breed them.”

  “They taste good?”

  “I have no idea, but now I raise ostriches. Those you can eat. Plus, they lay eggs the size of basketballs.”

  “True?”

  “I exaggerate only slightly.”

  Cavanaugh laughed again. “Hombre, I missed you.”

  He led them toward the lodge. In the kitchen, he scanned the monitors again, saw that everything was normal, and introduced Mrs. Patterson as she spooned pumpkin mix into the pie crust.

  “Want something to eat or drink?” he asked his guests.

  “Thank you, no,” William answered. “We have business to discuss. Then I need to get to Denver.”

  “What's in Denver?”

  “A Vietnamese businessman with a problem.”

  “Ah.” Knowing William's reluctance to confide, Cavanaugh knew that the Vietnamese businessman might actually be a Japanese baseball player. “I hoped you'd stay for a while. Both of you are welcome. You'll never forget the color of the sunset behind the Tetons.”

  “Another time.”

  10

  The office looked the same as when the property had been a dude ranch. Next to an old desk, a wall of photographs showed children fishing, swimming, riding horses, and pitching their tents in the meadow next to the lodge. Another wall had shelves with slots for mail and messages. Everything retained the vague smell of pipe smoke from long ago. On occasion, Cavanaugh was tempted to clear everything out, but then he remembered the two men in their thirties who'd arrived a couple of years earlier. They drove Winnebagos. They had beer paunches, their wives looked bored, and their kids kept shoving each other. The men asked Cavanaugh if it was all right for them to show their families what the children's camp had been like. They'd spent the happiest summers of their lives here, they said. They couldn't get over that everything was the same.

  Their happiest summers. Cavanaugh had found it sad that they knew their lives hadn't gotten any better.

  Now William sat in a dark leather chair and opened his briefcase while Cavanaugh and Jamie watched from wooden chairs across from him.

  “I came all this way because—”

  “You might as well know right away that I don't want a job.”

  “A job? You think I came here to offer you a job?”

  “Didn't you?”

  “The word ‘job’ doesn't quite describe it.” William looked amused. “I'm offering you everything.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “‘Lock, stock, and barrel,’ as I believe they say out here.”

  “You're not making sense.”

  “You've got it all, my friend.”

  “All of what?”

  “Global Protective Services.”

  Cavanaugh was certain he hadn't heard correctly. Then his heart lurched, and he took a long breath.

  “Duncan gave it to you in his will,” William said.

  Again, Cavanaugh was overwhelmed by memories. Tall and wiry, with a mustache, Duncan had been Cavanaugh's Delta Force instructor. After leaving the military, Duncan had founded an international security agency that flourished, thanks to the quality of the personnel Duncan hired, all of them from special-operations units around the world, many of them having been Duncan's students. When Duncan had been killed on an assignment, there were Global Protective Services branches in New York, London, Rome, and Hong Kong, with another planned for Tokyo.

  “His will?” Cavanaugh subdued the anger he suddenly felt. “You're telling me about this five months after he died?”

  “There were reasons.”

  “What reasons? Jesus, we could have talked about this at Duncan's funeral. We could have—”

  “No,” William said, “we couldn't have.”

  Cavanaugh noticed Jamie looking at him with concern.

  “I'm sorry,” he told William. “I didn't mean to sound like I was criticizing you.”

  “Of course not. Anyway, you're in mourning. You're allowed. One of the reasons you didn't hear about this until now is that it was difficult to verify Duncan's death so that the probate process could begin.”

  “Verify his . . .” Then Cavanaugh understood. The bullets had mutilated Duncan's face so completely that his teeth couldn't be used to establish his identity. What the bullets hadn't accomplished, a fire had. “God help him.”

  “There were indications of healed broken ribs and a similarly healed broken collarbone.”

  “Occupational injuries.” Cavanaugh felt sympathetic twinges in his own healed bones.

  “Unfortunately, there weren't any recent x-rays of those areas of his body, so I still couldn't prove the remains were his. Finally, I went to the Pentagon and asked to see Duncan's medical file. The Army was as protective of him in death as if he'd continued to be a Delta Force instructor. It took a phone call from a former client, a ranking member of the current administration, before the file was released to me. My concern was that the injuries occurred after Duncan left the military, in which case the x-ray films would have been valueless. But in fact, the broken ribs and collarbone were visible. I was able to make my case.”

  “You said ‘one of the reasons’ I didn't hear about this until now.”

  “Another is that Duncan was a better protector than he was a corporate executive. Without consulting me, he made a number of business decisions that brought the continuing existence of Global Protective Services into doubt. There almost weren'
t any assets for anyone to inherit. Fortunately, I've been able to disentangle those problems. But still another reason that I didn't pay you this visit until now is . . .” William held up a sheet of paper. “Duncan willed Global Protective Services to a man named Aaron Stoddard.”

  As Jamie gave Cavanaugh another look of concern, he sat straighter, his back hardening.

  “The problem is, nobody at GPS ever heard of a man with that name. Duncan didn't have any surviving family, so it wasn't possible to seek that avenue of help.”

  “You could have asked me,” Cavanaugh said.

  “You made clear you didn't want to be contacted. But what would you have answered if I had come to you and asked if you knew Aaron Stoddard? Would you have told me, or would you have remained determined to separate yourself from your former life?”

  Cavanaugh didn't reply.

  “In the end, the Pentagon complied with another of my requests. Aaron Stoddard, it turns out, once belonged to Delta Force also. In fact, he was one of Duncan's students. Then Duncan hired him for Global Protective Services, but by then, for security reasons, Aaron Stoddard was using another name. Your name.”

  Conscious of his heartbeat, Cavanaugh leaned back. He needed a few moments before he could respond.

  “Back then, my mother was still alive. My stepfather. My half-sister. My friends. When I joined GPS, I realized that one of the weaknesses in the system was that predators might target a protective agent as much as a client. They could grab a protector's family and friends and try to use them as leverage to get the protector to betray the client. I decided that I couldn't put my family and friends at risk. I needed to look out for their safety just as I did a client's, and the easiest way to do that was to assume a false name and identity that would keep predators from discovering my background.”

  “Well, you certainly succeeded. I believed ‘Cavanaugh’ was your true name. I've never heard you supply a first one, so I was surprised that in GPS's personnel files, you list a first name of ‘James.’”