Shadowfires

very much alone.

----
26 A MAN
GONE BAD
    Ben swung the Ford around the bend and
started to accelerate but saw the dark green sedan just beyond the
open gate. He braked, and the Ford fishtailed on the dirt lane. The
steering wheel jerked in his hands. But he did not lose control of
the car, kept it out of the ditches on both sides, and slid to a halt
in a roiling cloud of dust about fifty yards above the gate.
    Below, two men in dark suits had already gotten out of the sedan.
One of them was hanging back, although the other-and bigger-man was
rushing straight up the hill, closing fast, like a too-eager marathon
runner who had forgotten to change into his running shorts and shoes.
The yellowish dust gave the illusion of marbled solidity as it
whirled through veined patterns of shade and sunshine. But in spite
of the dust and in spite of the thirty yards that separated Ben from
the oncoming man, he could see the gun in the guy's hand. He could also see the silencer, which startled him.
    No police or federal agents used silencers. And Eric's business partners had opened up with a submachine gun in the heart of Palm Springs, so it was unlikely they would suddenly turn discreet.
    Then, only a fraction of a second after Ben saw the silencer, he
got a good look at the grinning face of the oncoming man, and he was
simultaneously astonished, confused, and afraid. Anson Sharp. It had
been sixteen years since he had seen Anson Sharp in Nam, back in
'72. Yet he had no doubt about the man's identity. Time had changed
Sharp, but not much. During the spring and summer of
'72, Ben had expected the big bastard to shoot him in the back or hire some Saigon hoodlum to do it-Sharp had been capable of anything-but Ben had been very careful, had not given Sharp the slightest opportunity. Now here was Sharp again, as if he'd
stepped through a time warp.
    What the hell had brought him here now, more than a decade and a
half later? Ben had the crazy notion that Sharp had been looking for
him all this time, anxious to settle the score, and just happened to
track him down now, in the midst of all these other troubles. But of
course that was unlikely-impossible-so somehow Sharp must be involved
with the Wildcard mess.
    Less than twenty yards away, Sharp took a
shooter's spread-legged stance on the road below and opened fire with the pistol. With a whap and a wet crackle of gummy safety glass, a slug punched through the windshield one foot to the right of Ben's
face.
    Throwing the car into reverse, he twisted around in his seat to
see the road behind. Steering with one hand, he drove backward up the
dirt lane as fast as he dared. He heard another bullet ricochet off
the car, and it sounded very close. Then he was around the turn and
out of Sharp's sight.
    He reversed all the way to the cabin before he stopped. There he
shifted the Ford into neutral, left the engine running, and engaged
the handbrake, which was the only thing holding the car on the slope.
He got out and quickly put the shotgun and the Combat Magnum on the
dirt to one side. Leaning back in through the open door, he gripped
the release lever for the handbrake and looked down the hill.
    Two hundred yards below, the Chevy sedan came around the bend,
moving fast, and started up toward him. They slowed when they saw
him, but they did not stop, and he dared to wait a couple of seconds
longer before he popped the handbrake and stepped back.
    Succumbing to gravity, the Ford rolled down the lane, which was so
narrow that the Chevy could not pull entirely out of the way. The
Ford encountered a small bump, jolted over it, and veered toward one
drainage ditch. For a moment Ben thought the car was going to run
harmlessly off to the side, but it stuttered over other ruts that
turned it back on course.
    The driver of the Chevy stopped, began to reverse, but the Ford
was picking up a lot of speed and was bearing down too fast to be
avoided. The Ford hit another bump and angled somewhat toward the
left again, so at the last second the Chevy swung hard to the right
in an evasive maneuver, almost dropping into the ditch. Nevertheless,
the two vehicles collided with a clang and crunch of metal, though
the impact
wasn't as direct or as devastating as Ben had hoped. The right front fender of the Ford hit the right front fender of the Chevy, then the Ford slid sideways to the left, as if it might come around a hundred and eighty degrees until it was