Defense Security Agency operativeand there seemed no point in lying
about it-the next thing Ben had to wonder about was how far Sharp had
risen in the D.S.A. After all, it seemed far too coincidental for Sharp
to have been assigned, by mere chance, to an investigation involving
Ben. More likely Sharp had arranged his assignment when he had read the
Leben file and discovered that Ben, his old and perhaps mostly forgotten
nemesis, had a relationship with Rachael. He’d seen a long-delayed
chance for revenge and had seized it. But surely an ordinary agent
could not choose assignments, which meant Sharp must be in a
sufficiently high position to set his own work schedule. Worse than
that, Sharp was of such formidable rank that he could open fire on Ben
without provocation and expect to be able to cover up a murder committed
in the plain sight of one of his fellow D.S.A operatives.
With the threat of Anson Sharp layered on top of all the other threats
that he and Rachael faced, Ben began to feel as if he were caught up in
a war again. In war, incoming fire usually started up when you least
expected it, and from the most unlikely source and direction. Which was
exactly what Anson Sharp’s appearance was, surprise fire from the most
unlikely source.
At the third mountainside house, Ben nearly walked in among four young
boys who were engaged in their own stealthy game of war, alerted at the
last minute when one of them sprang from cover and opened fire on
another with a cap-loaded machine gun. For the first time in his life,
Ben experienced a vivid flashback to the war, one of those mental
traumas that the media ascribed to every veteran. He fell and rolled
behind several low-growing dogwoods, where he lay listening to his
pounding heart, stifling a scream for half a minute until the flashback
passed.
None of the boys had seen him, and when he set out again, he crawled and
belly-crawled from one point of cover to another. From the leafy
dogwood to a clump of wild azaleas. From the azaleas to a low limestone
formation, where the desiccated corpse of a ground squirrel lay as if in
warning. Then over a small hill, through rough weeds that scratched his
face, under another split-rail fence.
Five minutes later, almost forty minutes after setting out from the
cabin, he bulled his way down a brushcovered slope and into a dry
drainage ditch alongside the state route that circled the lake.
Forty minutes, for God’s sake.
How far into the lonely desert had Rachael gotten in forty minutes?
Don’t think about that. Just keep moving.
He crouched in the tall weeds for a moment, catching his breath, then
stood up and looked both ways. No one was in sight. No traffic was
coming or going on the two-lane blacktop.
Considering that he had no intention of throwing away either the shotgun
or the Combat Magnum, which made him frightfully conspicuous, he was
lucky to find himself here on a Tuesday and at this hour. The state
route would not have been as lightly used at any other time.
During the early morning, the road would be busy with boaters,
fishermen, and campers on their way to the lake, and later many of them
would be returning. But in the middle of the afternoon-it was 2,SSthey
were comfortably settled for the day. He was also fortunate it was not
a weekend, for then the road would have been heavily traveled regardless
of the hour.
Deciding that he would be able to hear oncoming traffic before it drew
into sight-and would, therefore, have time to conceal himself-he climbed
out of the ditch and headed north on the pavement, hoping to find a car
to steal.
By 2,55, Rachael was through the El Cajon Pass, still ten miles south of
Victorville and almost forty-five miles from Barstow.
This was the last stretch of the interstate on which indications of
civilization could be seen with any frequency. Even here, except for
Victorville itself and the isolated houses and businesses strung between
it and Hesperia and Apple Valley, there was mostly just a vast emptiness