more hours, anyway.'
DEPUTY DOUGLAS LEE arched his spine away from the seat, grimacing at a sharp twinge in his lower back. And it was no wonder, he thought. He'd pulled the empty northern sector for his patrol tonight, and taking a leak was about the only reason you ever had to get out from behind the wheel on this run.
He'd written up only two tickets in eight hours-one for a burned-out taillight on a '56 pickup, and another for a rusted-out Grand Prix pushing forty in Gill Lake's twenty-mile-per-hour zone. Lord, no wonder Wisconsin cops had a reputation for nuisance tickets. Unless you were highway patrol on the interstate, there wasn't a whole hell of a lot else to do. Thank God.
He eased back when he felt the lap belt press against his stomach. Never used to do that, he thought, patting the belly that had been rising like a loaf of Paula's bread ever since he married her last year. He was going to have to start the nightly sit-ups again, get himself back in some kind of shape before he had to endure the humiliation of moving up to a larger uniform size.
He yawned and rubbed at the black stubble sprouting from his chin, wondering what Paula had waiting for their late supper tonight. Who knew that a Phi Beta Kappa with about a million med schools vying for her favor would turn into a gourmet chef? For that matter, who would expect that a drop-dead looker with that kind of future would choose to put everything on hold while she took a year or two to be the stay-at-home wife of some bumpkin cop with a size-forty-eight shirt and a size-six hat? Lee figured he was about the luckiest man in the world, and then some.
He slowed the cruiser at the intersection of Double-P, then, at the last minute, decided to turn south. He automatically looked up and down the black crossroads, even though traffic on this stretch was as scarce as hen's teeth. It weaved in and out of the edge of the state forest, and basically, you could go nowhere in either direction. With only four cars per shift and hundreds of miles of roads to cover, trouble-free roads like this one rarely saw a patrol. But a trouble-free road was exactly what Lee was looking for tonight. Officially off duty for the last seven minutes, the last thing he wanted was to come across anything that would interrupt a straight run home.
Twenty miles to Paula's arms, he thought, smiling. He had to concentrate to keep his foot light on the accelerator and his eyes busy on the far edge of the headlight beams. The deer were everywhere this far north, and they thought they owned the roads.
Too bad he hadn't spotted the Range Rover. It hadn't been an official call, really-just nosy Dorothy at dispatch, eavesdropping earlier this evening on the highway patrol frequency, passing along some poor bastard's worry about a car full of rich women-surely rich, because the Rover was out of Minneapolis, pretty new and pretty pricey. Lee liked stopping Minnesotans, with their tough cars and city attitudes. He might be a county deputy living in the sticks, but he had theticket book and the authority, and in a way he knew wasn't healthy, that made him feel better about himself.
He eased up on the accelerator and frowned. Yellow lights were flashing through the trees up ahead on the left, and there was no reason in the world for them to be there.
His headlights caught the black cross on a yellow intersection sign, and his frown deepened as he drew close enough to see the barrier blocking the narrow strip of asphalt on his left.
It was rare enough to see highway-maintenance crews up in this neck of the woods-the most wear these roads ever got came from deer crossing from one side to the other-but to see a road closed overnight was damn near unbelievable, especially a narrow little country road like the one that passed through Four Corners. Hell, he could probably repave the full length of it in a single day all by himself-with a teaspoon and a tar bucket.
He slowed to a crawl as he neared the intersection and squinted out his window, puzzled. There should have been some kind of a detour sign on the highway, and the boys at County Highway knew that. He shook his head and clucked his tongue, then cranked the wheel left. The headlights glared on the barrier's reflective paint and nearly blinded him as he braked a few feet back from the blinking yellow lights.
He shoved the gearshift into park and let the car idle while he tried to squint past the light. No highway equipment that he could see, no signs explaining the barrier. And now that he thought about it, it wasn't one of those fence-like barriers the county always used; it was just painted sawhorses stretched across the road, battery-operated lights jury-rigged to the tops, and no room on either side for local traffic.
He sagged back in the seat to puzzle it out, wrists draped over the top of the steering wheel. Finally, he reached for the clipboard to make a note to call Dorothy when he got home and ask if she knew what the hell was going on. . . .
'Sir?'
'Jee-zuz!'Lee gasped, dropping the clipboard and spinning his head toward his open window. His heart rate doubled within the space of a second. A man was standing there, right next to the car, and Lee hadn't heard so much as the scuff of a boot on asphalt.
'Sorry, sir. Didn't mean to startle you. Deputy ... ?'
'Lee, goddamnit! And where the hell did you come from?' he bellowed furiously. Damn. He hadn't been surprised like this since his older brother had popped out of his black closet and scared the shit out of him when he was eleven.
'Glad you're here, Deputy Lee. We were beginning to wonder if anyone was ever going to respond to our call....'
'What call? What the hell are you talking about? I didn't get any call.' Then Lee colored a little, remembering that he'd been in one of the county's infamous dead zones since he'd left Gill Lake, twisting around the roads that dipped through the northern hills that played havoc with straight radio transmissions. 'Shit,' he muttered, then squinted up at the man's face, trying to make out his features in the reflected glow of the dashboard lights. He'd already seen the camouflage fatigues, the familiar shape of a field cap . ..Jesus Christ. Was that an M16? What the hell?
'I don't understand, sir. Your dispatch didn't send you?'
Lee moved his hand to unsnap his seat belt slowly. 'Dispatch didn't send me anywhere. I'm off duty, on my way home, just stopped to see what the roadblock was for. Now what the hell is going on here, and who the hell are you?'
The man's brow furrowed. 'I don't understand. We called the highway patrol some time ago.. ..'
'Sheriff's Office and the patrol don't always automatically share calls up here. Besides, I've been off the air for the past half hour.'
'Well, that explains it, I guess.' The man nodded. 'But I'm still glad you're here. We're on a blackout weekend maneuver up here___'
'Who's 'we'?'
'National Guard, sir.'
Deputy Lee took a breath and relaxed a little.
'And about forty minutes ago, a dark blue Dodge Ram blasted through our roadblock doing about eighty, and when one of our men fired a warning shot, the passenger fired back. Shotgun, we think.'
Lee closed his eyes and shook his head. Some out-of-season deer-shiner with too many beers in his belly and too many shells in the chamber taking on the U.S. National Guard. 'You get a plate?'
'No, sir. He was moving too fast, and to tell you the truth, he had us pretty shook up. We have to assume he was shooting live ammo.'
Lee eyed the man's weapon. 'Shotgun or no, I'll bet he wasn't as armed as you are.'
The man looked down at his rifle with a rueful shake of his head. 'Blank cartridges, sir. They don't issue live ammo for weekend maneuvers.'
Lee released a sigh of relief. 'I suppose not.'
'But he went straight out of here and down that way.' He pointed south, the direction Lee had been headed anyway. 'The Colonel would sure like to see a man who shoots at U.S, troops in custody.'
Lee grabbed his clipboard, unsnapped his holster as he did whenever he left the car, and opened the door with a jerk, oddly pleased when the young soldier had to scramble back out of the way. He took another step back when Lee climbed out and stood upright, facing him. Six-foot-four and built like a linebacker, he towered over most men, this one included. He rested his hand on the grip of his nine, just for effect, and kept it there.
'Uh .. , aren't you going to go after him, sir?'
'In a minute. You know how it is. Seems I'm back on the clock, and I'm going to need a little information
