Shadowfires

sitting alongside the Chevy, both of them facing uphill. But when it had made only a quarter turn, the Ford's
rear wheels slammed into the ditch, and it halted with a shudder,
perpendicular to the road, effectively blocking it.
    The stricken Chevy rolled erratically backward for maybe thirty
feet, narrowly missing the other ditch, then came to a halt. Both
front doors were flung open. Anson Sharp got out of one, and the
driver got out of the other, and neither of them appeared to have
been hurt, which was pretty much what Ben had expected when the Ford
had not hit them head-on.
    Ben grabbed the shotgun and the Combat Magnum, turned, and ran
around the side of the cabin. He sprinted across the sun-browned
backyard to the toothlike granite formations from which he and
Rachael had observed the place earlier. He paused for a moment to
scan the woods ahead, looking for the quickest cover, then moved off
into the trees, toward the same brush-flanked dry wash that he and
Rachael had used before.
    Behind him, in the distance, Sharp was calling his name.
Still caught in the spiderweb of his moral
dilemma, Jerry Peake hung back a little from Sharp and watched his
boss warily.
    The deputy director had lost his head the moment he had seen
Shadway in the blue Ford. He had gone charging up the road, shooting
from a disadvantageous position, when he had little or no chance of
hitting his target. Besides, he could see that the woman was not in
the car with Shadway, and if they did kill the man before asking
questions, they might not be able to find out where she had gone. It
was shockingly sloppy procedure, and Peake was appalled.
    Now Sharp stalked the perimeter of the rear yard, breathing like
an angry bull, in such a peculiar state of excitement and rage that
he seemed oblivious of the danger of presenting such a high profile.
At several places along the edge of the woods, he took a step or two
into the knee-high weeds, peering down through the serried ranks of
trees.
    From three sides of the yard, the forested land fell away in a
jumble of rocky slopes and narrow defiles that offered countless
shadowed hiding places. They had lost Shadway for the moment. That
much was obvious to Peake. They should call for backup now, because
otherwise their man was going to slip entirely away from them through
the wilderness.
    But Sharp was determined to kill Shadway. He was not going to
listen to reason.
    Peake just watched and waited and said nothing.
    Looking down into the woods, Sharp shouted: “ United States
government, Shadway. Defense Security Agency. You hear me? DSA. We
want to talk to you, Shadway.”
    An invocation of authority was not going to work, not now, not
after Sharp had started shooting the moment he had seen Ben
Shadway.
    Peake wondered if the deputy director was undergoing a breakdown,
which would explain his behavior with Sarah Kiel and his
determination to kill Shadway and his ill-advised, irresponsible,
blazing-gun charge up the road a couple of minutes ago.
    Stomping along the edge of the woods, wading a few steps into the
underbrush again, Sharp called out: “Shadway! Hey, it's me, Shadway. Anson Sharp. Do you remember me, Shadway? Do you remember?”
    Jerry Peake took one step back and blinked as if someone had just
slapped him in the face: Sharp and Shadway knew each other, for
God's sake; knew each other, not merely in the abstract as the hunter and the hunted know each other, but personally. And it was clear-from Sharp's
taunting manner, crimson face, bulging eyes, and stentorian breathing-
that they were bitter adversaries. This was a grudge match of some
kind, which eliminated any small doubt Peake might have had about the
possibility that anyone above Sharp in the DSA had ordered Shadway
and Mrs. Leben killed. Sharp had decided to terminate these
fugitives, Sharp and no one else.
Peake's instincts had been on the money. But it did not solve anything to know he had been right when he'd
smelled deception in Sharp's story. Right or not, he was still left with the choice of either cooperating with the deputy director or pulling a gun on him, and neither course would leave him with both his career and his self-respect intact.
    Sharp plunged deeper into the woods, started down a slope into the
gloom beneath interlacing boughs of pine and spruce. He looked back,
shouted at Peake to join in the chase, took several more steps into
the brush, glanced back again and