eighty degrees until it was sitting alongside the Chevy, both of them
facing uphill. But when it had made only a quarter turn, the Ford’s
rear wheels slammed into the ditch, and it halted with a shudder,
perpendicular to the road, effectively blocking it.
The stricken Chevy rolled erratically backward for maybe thirty feet,
narrowly missing the other ditch, then came to a halt. Both front doors
were flung open. Anson Sharp got out of one, and the driver got out of
the other, and neither of them appeared to have been hurt, which was
pretty much what Ben had expected when the Ford had not hit them
head-on.
Ben grabbed the shotgun and the Combat Magnum, turned, and ran around
the side of the cabin. He sprinted across the sun-browned backyard to
the toothlike granite formations from which he and Rachael had observed
the place earlier. He paused for a moment to scan the woods ahead,
looking for the quickest cover, then moved off into the trees, toward
the same brush-flanked dry wash that he and Rachael had used before.
Behind him, in the distance, Sharp was calling his name.
Still caught in the spiderweb of his moral dilemma, Jerry Peake hung
back a little from Sharp and watched his boss warily.
The deputy director had lost his head the moment he had seen Shadway in
the blue Ford. He had gone charging up the road, shooting from a
disadvantageous position, when he had little or no chance of hitting his
target. Besides, he could see that the woman was not in the car with
Shadway, and if they did kill the man before asking questions, they
might not be able to find out where she had gone. It was shockingly
sloppy procedure, and Peake was appalled.
Now Sharp stalked the perimeter of the rear yard, breathing like an
angry bull, in such a peculiar state of excitement and rage that he
seemed oblivious of the danger of presenting such a high profile. At
several places along the edge of the woods, he took a step or two into
the knee-high weeds, peering down through the serried ranks of trees.
From three sides of the yard, the forested land fell away in a jumble of
rocky slopes and narrow defiles that offered countless shadowed hiding
places. They had lost Shadway for the moment. That much was obvious to
Peake. They should call for backup now, because otherwise their man was
going to slip entirely away from them through the wilderness.
But Sharp was determined to kill Shadway. He was not going to listen to
reason.
Peake just watched and waited and said nothing.
Looking down into the woods, Sharp shouted, nited States government,
Shadway. Defense Security Agency.
You hear me? D.S.A. We want to talk to you, Shadway.”
An invocation of authority was not going to work, not now, not after
Sharp had started shooting the moment he had seen Ben Shadway.
Peake wondered if the deputy director was undergoing a breakdown, which
would explain his behavior with Sarah Kiel and his determination to kill
Shadway and his ill-advised, irresponsible, blazing-gun charge up the
road a couple of minutes ago.
Stomping along the edge of the woods, wading a few steps into the
underbrush again, Sharp called out, “Shadway! Hey, it’s me, Shadway.
Anson Sharp. Do you remember me, Shadway? Do you remember?”
Jerry Peake took one step back and blinked as if someone had just
slapped him in the face, Sharp and Shadway knew each other, for God’s
sake, knew each other, not merely in the abstract as the hunter and the
hunted know each other, but personally. And it was clearfrom Sharp’s
taunting manner, crimson face, bulging eyes, and stentorian
breathing-that they were bitter adversaries. This was a grudge match of
some kind, which eliminated any small doubt Peake might have had about
the possibility that anyone above Sharp in the D.S.A had ordered Shadway
and Mrs. Leben killed. Sharp had decided to terminate these fugitives,
Sharp and no one else. Peake’s instincts had been on the money. But it
did not solve anything to know he had been right when he’d smelled
deception in Sharp’s story. Right or not, he was still left with the