unbuttoned his shirt part of the way, slipped the rock inside against
his belly, and rebuttoned.
With the semiautomatic Remington twelve-gauge in his right hand, he
stealthily traversed the embankment, moving south until he felt that he
was just below the rear end of their Chevrolet. Edging up to the top of
the slope again, he found that he had estimated the distance perfectly,
The rear bumper of their sedan was inches from his face.
Sharp’s window was open-standard government cars seldom boasted
air-conditioning-and Ben knew he had to make the final approach in
absolute silence. If Sharp heard anything suspicious and looked out his
window, or if he even glanced at his side-view mirror, he would see Ben
scurrying behind the Chevy.
A convenient noise, just loud enough to provide cover, would be welcome,
and Ben wished the wind would pick up a bit. A good strong gust,
shaking the trees, would mask his Better yet, the sound of a car engine
rose, approaching from the north, from behind the sedan. Ben waited
tensely, and a gray Pontiac Firebird appeared from that direction. As
the Firebird drew nearer, the sound of rock music grew louder, a couple
of kids on a pleasure ride, windows open, cassette player blaring, Bruce
Springsteen singing enthusiastically about love and cars and foundry
workers. Perfect.
Just as the supercharged Firebird was passing the Chevy, when the noise
of engine and Springsteen were loudest, and when Sharp’s attention was
almost certainly turned in a direction exactly opposite that of his
side-view mirror, Ben scrambled quickly over the top of the embankment
and crept behind the sedan. He stayed low, under their back window, so
he would not be seen in the rearview mirror if the other D.S.A agent
checked the road behind.
As the Firebird and Springsteen faded, Ben duckwalked to the left rear
corner of the Chevy, took a deep breath, leaped to his feet, and pumped
a round from the shotgun into the back tire on that side. The blast
shattered the still mountain air with such power that it scared Ben even
though he knew it was coming, and both men inside cried out in alarm.
One of them shouted, “Stay down!” The car sagged toward the driver’s
side. His hands stinging from the recoil of the first shot, Ben fired
again, strictly to scare them this time, putting the load low over the
top of the car, just low enough so some of the shot skipped across the
roof, which to those inside must have sounded like pellets impacting in
the interior. Both men were down on the front seat, trying to stay out
of the line of fire, a position which also made it impossible for them
either to see Ben or to shoot at him.
He fired another round into the dirt shoulder as he ran, paused to blow
out the front tire on the driver’s side, causing the car to sag further
in that direction.
He pumped one more load into the same tire solely for dramatic
effect-the thunderous crash of the shotgun had unnerved even him, so it
must have paralyzed Sharp and the other guy-then glanced at the
windshield to be sure both of his adversaries were still below the line
of fire. He saw no sign of them, and he put his sixth and final shot
through the glass, confident that he would not seriously hurt either man
but would scare them badly enough to ensure that they would continue to
hug the car seat for another half minute or so.
Even as the shotgun pellets were lodging in the back seat of the Chevy
and the safety glass was still falling out into the front seat, Ben took
three running steps, dropped flat to the ground, and pulled himself
under the Dodge station wagon. When they got the courage to lift their
heads, they would figure he had run into the woods on one side of the
road or the other, where he was reloading and waiting to make another
pass at them when they showed themselves. They would never expect to
find him lying prostrate on the ground beneath the very next car in