Double Jeopardy (21 page)

“So?”

“Maybe nothing. But that’s where I’d sit if I wanted to keep an unobtrusive eye on us and ensure that we couldn’t leave without his knowing about it.”

Travis dropped a pencil and, under the pretense of recovering it, took a look under the carrel. He saw the man right away; there weren’t that many people in the library, and the man appeared to be reading a
Southwestern Reporter
page by page. It was a dead giveaway. No one read case reports; someone might look up a case, but no one sat around reading them like they were Agatha Christies. He might as well be holding the book upside down; it was just a prop.

“You’re right,” Travis whispered. “He’s waiting for something.”

“Probably for us to leave so he can drill us. He’s got a very suspicious bulge inside his windbreaker.” She laid her notepad on the carrel. “I’m going to talk to him.”

“Wait.” Travis grabbed her wrist. “I’ll go. I’m the one he’s looking for.”

“All the more reason you should stay here. While I distract him you can get the car.”

“No way.”

Cavanaugh pushed him back down. “Relax. He won’t try anything here. And he may not recognize me. Let me see what I can find out. Who knows? We might actually learn something if you don’t kick his teeth out first. Just make sure you have the car waiting outside if I have to make a break for it.”

“Too risky.”

“I’m willing to take the risk.”

“For me?” He raised an eyebrow. “You’re starting to sound like you might give a damn what happens to me.”

“Perish the thought.”

Cavanaugh walked the long way around the room, past the law reviews and through the regional reporters. She came up behind the man, hoping to catch him by surprise.

“Excuse me,” she said. “Are you a law student?”

The man turned around slowly. His eyes were masked with dark sunglasses, his hair was covered by a baseball cap.

“Uh … yeah,” he answered. “I am.”

“Great. Maybe you can help me. I’m looking for the
Pacific Reporters.
Can you tell me where they are?”

“Uh, right. I always forget where those are shelved.” His voice was muffled and indistinct. He scanned the identifier tabs on the end of each row of books. “Yeah, here they are. I thought so.”

“Thanks a million,” Cavanaugh said. “And could you help me find this cite?” She scribbled a citation on her legal pad—
512 P.2d 1204.
“I’m a secretary, see, and this complex legal gibberish baffles me.”

The man shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. “You know, I’m just a first-year student, and I haven’t figured those codes out either. Sorry.”

“Oh, that’s all right. I’m sorry to bother you. Oops!” Cavanaugh dropped her legal pad so that it fell almost between his legs. After a moment’s hesitation the man picked it up. While he was bent over, his windbreaker rose and Cavanaugh spotted the equipment belt strapped around his waist.

“I’m sorry,” she said, bopping herself on the side of the head. “I’m such a klutz sometimes. I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

“No problem.”

“I feel awful about interrupting your studies. You’ve probably got finals this week.”

He nodded. “Yeah, finals. They’re a bear.”

“Right. Finals in mid-April.”

The man moved toward her, arms extended.

Cavanaugh started to move away, but the man seized her wrist. He tightened his grip and twisted, sending flashes of pain through her arm. He pushed her backward into the relative seclusion of the stacks. She tried to pull away, but he grabbed her other arm and held fast. She tried to toss him over her shoulder, but he was too heavy and too strong.

“You’ve already blown it,” Cavanaugh said, her teeth clenched. “No one has finals in April. Just as no one could get through a semester in law school without learning how to look up a case citation. If you don’t let go of me in two seconds, I’ll scream.”

“If you scream, you die,” the man replied matter-of-factly. He pressed his thumb against a spot behind and below her ear. “Feel that? Hurts, doesn’t it?”

Cavanaugh tried to answer, but couldn’t. The sudden pain shot through her head like a lightning bolt. Her eyes watered. This man knew what he was doing.

“The right amount of pressure applied to the right point can kill someone in the blink of an eye,” he said. He pressed even harder. “And I know exactly where to apply the pressure.”

Tears streamed out of Cavanaugh’s eyes. What had happened? This man had placed her entirely under his control in a matter of seconds.

“I saw your boyfriend leave.” His lips brushed against her ear. “Take me to him.” He twisted her arm behind her back.

Cavanaugh could barely think, the pain had become so intense; it was as if he had driven an iron spike through her skull. She couldn’t take him to Travis, but she knew she couldn’t take much more of this, either. She felt as if her head might snap off at any moment. She began to pray for unconsciousness.

“Three seconds,” the man whispered. “Then I’ll finish you off. Where
is
he?” He pressed his other thumb on the same point behind her other ear, doubling the pain. Cavanaugh’s lips parted, but the sound she made was merely a whimper. It was all she could do.

“Let go of her.”

Cavanaugh heard a deep voice behind her.
Travis?
But he had gone to the car. …

She felt a jerking, then a loosening of the man’s grip. She opened her eyes, tried to focus. It
was
Travis. He had come behind them and wrapped his necktie around the man’s throat.

“Let go of her!” Travis barked, twisting the ends of the tie. The man slowly removed his fingers. She felt a great rush as blood streamed back into her head. The pressure points still ached, but it was an aching of relieved tension, not of impending death.

“Don’t even think about going for any of those fancy weapons you’re carrying,” Travis ordered. “Who are you?”

The man didn’t answer.

“What is it you want?”

The only reply was a defiant glare.

Travis twisted the tie as firmly as possible around the man’s windpipe. Still no response.

Travis heard a stirring noise from the front of the library. Apparently they’d caught the attention of the front desk librarian. Using the necktie like a leash, Travis swung the man around and sent him reeling into a nearby reading room. He slammed the door shut and pushed a carrel in front of the doorway.

“That’ll slow him down for thirty seconds or so,” Travis said, grabbing Cavanaugh’s hand. “The car’s outside. Let’s go.”

C
AVANAUGH DOVE INTO THE
passenger seat and slammed the door behind her. “Drive like hell, Byrne.”

“Got it.” He threw the stick into first and zoomed out of the parking lot.

Cavanaugh didn’t speak for several minutes. Then, finally: “You saw the belt he was wearing?”

Travis nodded.

“I can’t be sure,” Cavanaugh said, “but I think that’s what some of my military clients call a Sam Browne belt.”

“What the hell is that?”

“It’s specially designed for people going into combat situations. Soldiers, spies, terrorists. It holds a lot of ammo and assault gizmos.”

“I saw a bulge under his jacket, too,” he said. “A holster with a gun in it?”

“I think that’s a safe assumption.”

“Did you recognize any of the gadgets on his belt?”

“I only got a quick look, but I’ve seen some of it before, usually in narcotics cases. He had an infrared nightscope, for instance. High-powered, compact binoculars. What the pros call a Puukko knife—specially designed for quick, clean kills.”

“Who would carry lethal crap like that?”

“Anyone who wants to. It’s available. Pawnshops, soldier-of-fortune mail-order houses, wherever.” She paused. “But you know who really loves this stuff?”

“Who?”

“Spooks. CIA agents.”

“
CIA
?” Travis felt a sudden catching in his throat. In addition to the mob? On top of the police and the FBI? Who
wasn’t
involved in this? Who
didn’t
want a piece of Travis Byrne?

“Why the CIA?”

“Beats me. But of course I don’t really understand why anyone is involved, or what it is they’re involved in.”

“Good point.”

“Maybe the guy just has connections to the CIA. Or the military. Access to their equipment.”

“An unpleasant possibility.”

“Yeah.” Cavanaugh looked down at her lap and fidgeted with her fingers. “I wanted to thank you, Byrne. For … you know. Bailing me out of that.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“No, I want to mention it. The truth is, I’ve been kind of … well, I’ve been kind of crappy to you. Maybe it’s because you play hardball in the courtroom and you’ve screwed up my win-loss record. Maybe it’s … something else.” She gazed out the window. “You could’ve just driven away. But you didn’t. So—thanks.”

“My pleasure,” he said quietly.

She pounded her fist against her hand. “I can’t believe I was so … helpless.”

“That spook was obviously well trained. He would’ve clobbered me if he’d had half a chance.”

“I hate being so … vulnerable.”

“We’re way outmatched. You shouldn’t have gone by yourself.”

“I didn’t think he would try anything in the middle of the library. How did I know he was some trained super-killer?”

“From now on, assume the worst about everything and everyone.” Travis wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw Cavanaugh shudder. “Did you recognize him?”

“No. You?”

“I never got a good look at his face.”

“Ditto. For a moment I thought there was something familiar about him, but I couldn’t pinpoint it.”

“Well, give it some thought.” Travis reentered the highway, merged into the fast lane, and zoomed into the darkness.

“Do you think he’s following us?”

“If he isn’t, he will be soon.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. How did he find us at the library? How do these people keep finding us wherever we go?”

“I’m not tipping anyone off, Travis.”

“I didn’t mean to suggest that you were. It’s just mysterious, that’s all. Christ!” His muscles tightened in frustration. “Get that blue box out. I’m going to make some phone calls.”

The librarian found the man pounding on the door of the reading room. First she insisted on asking idiotic questions, then she took forever to move the stupid carrel out of the doorway. As soon as the path was clear, he pushed her aside and raced out of the library.

He started his Jeep and activated the monitor, trying to pick up the signal of the tracing device he had placed in the briefcase. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

He bashed his head against the steering column. What was wrong with him? First he let Byrne sneak up on him, then he let him get beyond the tracer’s radius. A simple mission, and he had blown it.

He bit down on his lower lip till it bled. It was starting all over again. The screwups. The headstrong craziness. The failure to observe procedures. This is what had gotten him kicked out, and now, when it really mattered, he was doing it all over again.

He would never get Byrne at this rate. He’d be lucky now if he even found him again. All he could do was drive around the city, all night long if necessary, hoping to stumble within twenty miles of wherever Byrne was now. Barely better than a needle in a haystack, but it was all he had.

He removed a city map from the glove compartment. He would cover the city systematically, one section at a time, picking the roads that would eventually bring him within twenty miles of almost everything. With luck, they would stop somewhere for the night and he’d have a chance to zero in on them. And if he didn’t get them the first time, he’d start all over again. And again, and again, and again. He would drive forever if necessary. He would ignore the fatigue, the despair, the pain. He would regain what he had lost.

And by God, the next time Travis Byrne would not get away from him.

W
HEN KRAMER ENTERED MARIO’S
office, it was almost entirely dark. The gooseneck lamp was off. Only the subtlest hint of a silhouette informed him that Mario was in his usual place behind his desk. All he could see were two incandescent eyes burning across the room.

Mario spoke first. “It was Donny?”

Kramer ran his finger up and down the scar on his face. “Uh … yeah. It was.”

A very long pause. “What am I to tell his mother? He was her only son. My only nephew.”

“I—I don’t know. Sir.” Kramer shoved his hands inside his pockets. “I didn’t know Donny was followin’ me. Hell! Donny was stupid as shit, but I still wouldn’t have—”

“Don’t speak ill of the dead.”

“Sorry.” The hypocrisy of the moment was beginning to overwhelm him. As if Mario really gave a damn. “Look, we all knew what Donny was. He had no future with us—”

“Does that mean he deserved to die? To be burned alive? Ventilated by hundreds of nails?” Mario’s voice boomed out of the darkness. “Should we dispose of all our castoffs by sealing them in a car with one of your demented death traps?”

“It was a good idea. A smart backup plan. Just in case the first line of assault didn’t work.”

“Which it didn’t.”

“That’s … true. Like the bumper stickers say, shit happens. You can’t blame me for that.”

“You sent a hireling to perform a job you should have done yourself. You weren’t even there.”

“I couldn’t have passed as an office courier. My … appearance would’ve aroused his suspicions.”

“This is simply another attempt to excuse your failure. A ghastly failure that has now cost us two men. Including my nephew.”

“Give it a rest. You never liked Donny any better than I did. Just stay cool a little longer and I’ll serve Byrne’s head to you on a silver platter. Moroconi’s, too.”

“Your time is up, Mr. Kramer.” Mario rose to his feet and slowly emerged from the shadows. “For many years I have believed you were not a desirable member of our organization. In the old days, perhaps, you had a place. But now you are a relic. In this latest matter, you have proven your obsolescence. Although I have given you every possible chance, you have failed to deliver Moroconi. You haven’t even been able to find a stupid lawyer. And in the course of this catastrophic failure, you have cost men their lives and threatened the integrity of our entire organization.”