up over the visor, just in case--and lo! the keys!
He laughed aloud. No. It couldn't get any better than this!
He put the gun down on the seat and shoved the key into the ignition
slot-'Going somewhere. Colonel?'
Surprised, Ventura jumped, started to grab the Coonan-'Don't! You
won't make it!'
Ventura froze. He looked up.
Standing six feet away, a shotgun aimed at Ventura's head, was General
Jackson 'Bull' Smith. Smiling.
This was not in Ventura's game plan.
'General. Odd running into you here.'
'Not odd at all, Luther. Me and a few of the boys have been waiting
for you to show up.'
'Those two were yours?'
'They were.'
'Sorry.'
'Don't worry about it. They deserved what they got--it was a bonehead
move, going at you face-on.'
Smith smiled again, and the shotgun didn't waver a hair. Ventura was
looking right down the muzzle. Twelve-gauge, he noted. Modified
choke.
'There was a pair of other guys here before us, commie agents, near as
we could tell, but they ... went away.'
'I thought there might be. Thanks.'
'Don't thank me yet. I had a couple other boys tailing you, but you
lost 'em after that mess in Los Angeles. Lost your client, too, that's
a real shame. Figured you'd show up here sooner or later.'
'You continue to surprise me. General. How?'
'Because there are better surveillance gadgets than the ones you had in
your car at the compound, that's how.
You think because we live up in the woods and stomp around in the bear
shit we don't have access to modern technology? You get a flunking
grade for underestimating folks, Luther. Especially your friends. You
should have cut me in, instead of trying to bullshit me with that story
of yours.'
Ventura smiled and shook his head.
'I sit corrected, General. Real impressive work. Not too late to make
amends, is it?'
'I'm afraid it is. Colonel, I'm afraid it is.'
When he saw the man with the shotgun point the weapon at Ventura where
he sat in the truck he was presumably going to steal, Michaels slid
into a front yard and behind a thick-boled Douglas fir tree. He was
across the street and they were busy enough with each other that they
hadn't noticed him. Reaching down, he hit the alarm button on his
virgil. It would take them a minute or two to react, but he was no
longer worried about alerting Ventura.
Now what? Who was this guy? Was he connected to the two dead men at
Morrison's? What the hell was going on?
Michaels was sixty, seventy feet away, and the taser was accurate for
