Shadowfires

the rules, not if you want to win, and our government has created the agency to win, Jerry. You're
young, but I'm sure you've been around long enough to know what
I'm talking about. I'm sure you've bent the law a few times yourself.”
    “Well, sir, yes, a little, maybe,” Peake said carefully, beginning
to sweat under the collar of his white shirt.
    They passed a sign: lake arrowhead -10 miles.
    “All right, Jerry, I'm going to level with you and hope you're the
solid, reliable man I think you are. I
haven't brought a lot of backup with us because the word's come down
from Washington that Mrs. Leben and Benjamin Shadway have to go. And
if we're going to take care of them, we need to keep the party small, quiet, discreet.”
    “Take care of them?”
    “They're to be terminated, Jerry. If we find them at the cabin with Eric Leben, we try our best to take Leben prisoner so he can be studied under lab conditions, but Shadway and the woman have to be terminated, with prejudice. That would be difficult if not impossible with a lot of police present; we'd
have to delay the terminations until we had Shadway and Mrs. Leben in
our sole custody, then stage a fake escape attempt or something. And
with too many of our own men present,
there'd be a greater chance of the terminations leaking out to the media. In a way, it's
sort of a blessing that you and I are getting a chance to handle this
alone, because we'll be able to stage it just right before the police and media types are brought in.”
    Terminate? The agency had no license to terminate civilians. This
was mad. But Peake said, “Why terminate Shadway and Mrs. Leben?”
    “I'm afraid that's classified, Jerry.”
    “But the warrant that cites them for suspected espionage and for
the police murders in Palm Springs… well, that's just a cover story, right? Just a way to get the local cops to help us in the search.”
    “Yes,” Sharp said, “but
there's a great deal about this case you don't know, Jerry.
Information that's tightly held and that I can't share with you, not
even though I'm asking you to assist me in what may appear, to you, to be a highly illegal and possibly even immoral undertaking. But as deputy director, I assure you, Shadway and Mrs. Leben are a mortal danger to this country, so dangerous that we dare not let them speak with the media or with local authorities.”
    Bullshit, Peake thought, but he said nothing, just drove onward
under felt-green and blue-green trees that arched over the road.
    Sharp said, “The decision to terminate is not mine alone. It comes
from Washington, Jerry. And not just from Jarrod McClain. Much higher
than that, Jerry. Much higher. The very highest.”
    Bullshit, Peake thought. Do you really expect me to believe
the president ordered the cold-blooded killing of two hapless
civilians who've gotten in over their heads by no real fault of their own?
    Then he realized that, before the insights he had achieved at the
hospital in Palm Springs a short while ago, he might well have been
naive enough to believe every word of what Sharp was telling him. The
new Jerry Peake, enlightened both by the way Sharp had treated Sarah
Kiel and by the way he'd reacted to The Stone, was not quite so gullible 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