as the old Jerry Peake, but Sharp had no way of knowing that.
“From the highest authority, Jerry.”
Somehow, Peake knew that Anson Sharp had his own reasons for wanting
Shadway and Rachael Leben dead, that Washington knew nothing about
Sharp’s plans. He could not cite the reason for his certainty in this
matter, but he had no doubt. Call it a hunch. Legends-and would-be
legends-had to trust their hunches.
They’re armed, Jerry-and dangerous, I assure you.
Though they aren’t guilty of the crimes we’ve specified on the warrant,
they are guilty of other crimes of which I can’t speak because you don’t
have a high enough security clearance. But you can rest assured that we
won’t exactly be gunning down a pair of upstanding citizens.”
Peake was amazed by the tremendously increased sensitivity of his crap
detector. Only yesterday, when he had been in awe of every superior
agent, he might not have perceived the pure, unadulterated stink of
Sharp’s smooth line, but now the stench was overwhelming.
“But sir,” Peake said, “if they surrender, give up their guns? We still
terminate . . . with prejudice?”
“Yes.”
“We’re judge, jury, and executioner?”
A note of impatience entered Sharp’s voice. “Jerry, damn it all, do you
think I like this? I killed in the war, in Vietnam, when my country
told me killing was necessary, and I didn’t like that much, not even
when it was a certifiable enemy, so I’m not exactly jumping with joy
over the prospect of killing Shadway and Mrs. Leben, who on the surface
would appear to deserve killing a whole hell of a lot less than the
Vietcong did. However, I am privy to top-secret information that’s
convinced me they’re a terrible threat to my country, and I am in
receipt of orders frnm the highest authority to terminate them.
If you want to know the truth, it makes me a little sick.
Nobody likes to face the fact that sometimes an immoral act is the only
right thing to be done, that the world is a place of moral grays, not
just black and white. I don’t like it, but I know my duty.”
Oh, you like it well enough, Peake thought. You like it so much that
the mere prospect of blowing them away has you so excited you’re ready
to piss in your pants.
“Jerry? Do you know your duty, too? Can I count on you?”
In the living room of the cabin, Ben found something that he and Rachael
had not noticed before, a pair of binoculars on the far side of the
armchair near the window.
Itiitting them to his eyes and looking out the window, he could clearly
see the bend in the dirt road where he and Rachael had crouched to study
the cabin. Had Eric been in the chair, watching them with the
binoculars?
In less than fifteen minutes, Ben finished searching the living room and
the three bedrooms. It was at the window of the last of these chambers
that he saw the broken brush at the far edge of the lawn, at a point
well removed from that place where he and Rachael had come out of the
forest on their initial approach to the cabin. That was, he suspected,
where Eric had gone into the woods just after spotting them with the
binoculars. Increasingly, it appeared that the noises they heard in the
forest had been the sounds of Eric stalking them.
Very likely Leben was still out there, watching.
The time had come to go after him.
Benny left the bedroom, crossed the living room. In the kitchen, as he
pushed open the rear screen door, he saw the ax out of the corner of his
eye, It was leaning against the side of the refrigerator.
Ar?
Turning away from the door, frowning, puzzled, he looked down at the
sharp blade. He was certain it had not been there when he and Rachael
had entered the cabin through the same door.
Something cold crawled through the hollow of his spine.
After he and Rachael had made the first circuit of the house, they had
wound up in the garage, where they had discussed what they must do next.