Shadowfires

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 you think I like this? I killed in the war, in Vietnam, when my country told me killing was necessary, and I didn't like that much, not even when it was a certifiable enemy, so I'm not exactly jumping with joy over the prospect of killing Shadway and Mrs. Leben, who on the surface would appear to deserve killing a whole hell of a lot less than the Vietcong did. However, I am privy to top-secret information that's convinced me they're a terrible threat to my country, and I am in receipt of orders from the highest authority to terminate them. If you want to know the truth, it makes me a little sick. Nobody likes to face the fact that sometimes an immoral act is the only right thing to be done, that the world is a place of moral grays, not just black and white. I don't like it, but I know my duty.”

Oh, you like it well enough, Peake thought. You like it so much that the mere prospect of blowing them away has you so excited you're ready to piss in your pants.

“Jerry? Do you know your duty, too? Can I count on you?”

* * *

In the living room of the cabin, Ben found something that he and Rachael had not noticed before: a pair of binoculars on the far side of the armchair near the window. Putting them to his eyes and looking out the window, he could clearly see the bend in the dirt road where he and Rachael had crouched to study the cabin. Had Eric been in the chair, watching them with the binoculars?

In less than fifteen minutes, Ben finished searching the living room and the three bedrooms. It was at the window of the last of these chambers that he saw the broken brush at the far edge of the lawn, at a point well removed from that place where he and Rachael had come out of the forest on their initial approach to the cabin. That was, he suspected, where Eric had gone into the woods just after spotting them with the binoculars. Increasingly, it appeared that the noises they heard in the forest had been the sounds of Eric stalking them.

Very likely Leben was still out there, watching.

The time had come to go after him.

Benny left the bedroom, crossed the living room. In the kitchen, as he pushed open the rear screen door, he saw the ax out of the corner of his eye: It was leaning against the side of the refrigerator.

Ax?

Turning away from the door, frowning, puzzled, he looked down at the sharp blade. He was certain it had not been there when he and Rachael had entered the cabin through the same door.

Something cold crawled through the hollow of his spine.

After he and Rachael had made the first circuit of the house, they had wound up in the garage, where they had discussed what they must do next. Then they had come back inside and had gone straight through the kitchen to the living room to gather up the Wildcard file. That done, they had returned to the garage, gotten into the Mercedes, and driven down to the gate. Neither time had they passed this side of the refrigerator. Had the ax been here then?

The icy entity inside Ben's spine had crept all the way up to the base of his skull.

Ben saw two explanations for the ax — only two. First, perhaps Eric had been in the kitchen while they'd been in the adjacent garage planning their next move. He could have been holding the weapon, waiting for them to return to the house, intending to catch them by surprise. They had been only feet away from Eric without realizing it, only moments away from the quick, biting agony of the ax. Then, for some reason, as Eric listened to them discuss strategy, he had decided against attacking, opted for some other course of action, and had put down the ax.

Or…

Or Eric had not been in the cabin then, had only entered later, after he saw them drive away in the Mercedes. He had discarded the ax, thinking they were gone for good, then had fled without it when he heard Benny returning in the Ford.

One or the other.

Which? The need to answer that question seemed urgent and all-important. Which?

If Eric had been here earlier, when Rachael and Ben were in the garage, why hadn't he attacked? What had changed his mind?

The cabin was almost as empty of sound as a vacuum. Listening, Ben tried to determine if the silence was one of expectation, shared by him and one other lurking presence, or a silence of solitude.

Solitude, he soon decided. The dead, hollow, empty stillness that you experienced only when you were utterly and unquestionably alone. Eric was not in the house.

Ben looked through the screen door at the woods that lay beyond the brown lawn. The forest appeared still, as well, and he had the unsettling feeling that Eric was not out there, either, that he would have the woods to himself if he searched for his prey among the trees.

“Eric?” he said softly but aloud, expecting and receiving no answer. “Where the hell have you gone, Eric?”

He lowered the shotgun, no longer bothering to hold it at the ready because he knew in his bones that he would not encounter Eric on this mountain.

More silence.