Shadowfires

could not see any way he could participate in cold-
blooded murder and still live with himself. For sure, his dream of
being a legend would be shattered.
    On the other hand, if he crossed Sharp, he would destroy his
career in the DSA.
    “The macadam should turn to gravel,” Sharp said, consulting the
directions The Stone had given him.
    In spite of all his recent insights, in spite of the advantages
those insights should have given him, Jerry Peake did not know what
to do. He did not see a way out that would leave him with both his
self-respect and his career. As he drove up the slope, deeper into
the dark of the woods, a panic began to build in him, and for the
first time in many hours he felt inadequate.
    “Gravel,” Anson Sharp noted as they left the pavement.
    Suddenly Peake saw that his predicament was even worse than he had
realized because Sharp was likely to kill him, too. If Peake tried to
stop Sharp from killing Shadway and the Leben woman, then Sharp would
simply shoot Peake first and set it up to look as if the two
fugitives had done it. That would even give Sharp an excuse to kill
Shadway and Mrs. Leben: “They wasted poor damn Peake, so there was
nothing else I could do.” Sharp might even come out of it a hero. On
the other hand, Peake
couldn't just step out of the way and let the deputy director cut them down, for that would not satisfy Sharp; if Peake did not participate in the killing with enthusiasm, Sharp would never really trust him and would most likely shoot him after Shadway and Mrs. Leben were dead, then claim one of them had done it. Jesus. To Peake (whose mind was working faster than it had ever worked in his life), it looked as if he had only two choices: join in the killing and thereby gain Sharp's
total trust-or kill Sharp before Sharp could kill anyone else. But
no, wait, that was no solution, either-
    “Not much farther,” Sharp said, leaning forward in his seat,
peering intently through the windshield. “Slow it to a crawl.”
    -no solution at all, because if he shot Sharp, no one would ever
believe that Sharp had intended to kill Shadway and Mrs. Leben-after
all, what was the
bastard's motive? -and Peake would wind up on trial for blowing away his superior. The courts were never ever easy on cop killers, even if the cop killer was another cop, so sure as hell he'd
go to prison, where all those seven-foot-tall, no-neck criminal types
would just delight in raping a former government agent. Which
left-what?-one horrible choice and only one, which was to join in the
killing, descend to Sharp's level, forget about being a legend and settle for being a goddamn Gestapo thug. This was crazy, being trapped in a situation with no right answers, only wrong answers, crazy and unfair, damn it, and Peake felt as if the top of his head were going to blow off from the strain of seeking a better answer.
    “That's the gate she described,” Sharp said. “And it's open! Park
this side of it.”
    Jerry Peake stopped the car, switched off the engine.
    Instead of the expected quietude of the forest, another sound came
through the open windows the moment the sedan fell silent: a racing
engine, another car, echoing through the trees.
    “Someone's coming,” Sharp said, grabbing his silencer-equipped pistol and throwing open his door just as a blue Ford roared into view on the road above them, bearing down at high speed.
While the service-station attendant filled
the Mercedes with Arco unleaded, Rachael got candy and a can of Coke
from the vending machines. She leaned against the trunk, alternately
sipping Coke and munching on a Mr. Goodbar, hoping that a big dose of
refined sugar would lift her spirits and make the long drive ahead
seem less lonely.
    “Going to Vegas?” the attendant asked.
    “That's right.”
    “I 'spected so. I'm good at guessing where folks is headed. You
got that Vegas look. Now listen, first thing you play when you get
there is roulette. Number twenty-four, 'cause I have this hunch about it, just looking at you. Okay?”
    “Okay. Twenty-four.”
    He held her Coke while she got the cash from her wallet to pay
him. “You win a fortune,
I'll expect half, of course. But if you lose, it'll be the devil's work, not mine.”
    He bent down and looked in her window just as she was about to
drive away. “You be careful out there on the desert. It can be
mean.”
    “I know,” she said.
    She drove onto I-15 and headed north-northeast toward distant
Barstow, feeling