Free A Clear and Present Danger by Buck Sanders Page A

enjoyable time of his life, a necessary bridge
     between his discharge from the Air Force, the resumption of his scholastic life at the University of Michigan, his days of
     political activism as a member of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and his life today as a T-man.
    Jean Marie Parrish had come to the races that day in a tank town outside Washington, a town on the circuit Ben Slayton rode
     in. He remembered everything they talked about, but only a few things about their actual meeting.
    He was driving a ’72 Pontiac LeMans turbo-charger in those days, and he was winning a good percentage of the events he entered.
     The day he met Jean Marie was his biggest payday yet.
    It was a perfect Indian Summer Saturday. A high school band played the national anthem as all the drivers, in toggle suits
     with helmets held respectfully over the heart, stared at the flag flapping in the breeze. The dull roar of racing engines
     and the pervasive smell of motor oil accompanied the ritual music.
    Slayton, as usual, was doing stomach exercises while he stood waiting to race, a practice which he found calmed him. He forced
     his stomach out, then sucked it in, out, then in… .
    He heard a woman’s laughter and turned around. He could have reached out and touched her. She sat in a private box behind
     him. Or rather stood, her hand across her heart as the band played on. She wasn’t singing the words to the national anthem;
     she watched Ben Slayton’s stomach making its peculiar motions and she found it funny.
    Embarrassed and angry at the same time, Slayton quickly turned away from her, but not quickly enough to erase the image of
     her face from his mind.
    She was dark-skinned from the sun. Her hair was titian, her eyes a very dark blue, large and wide-set on her face. Her mouth
     was generous, her nose delicate. She had an intelligent and joyous look. In her face, he saw his future. Never had a woman
     had such an affect on him, such an all-encompassing, powerful effect.
    The band’s contribution to the day of racing and gambling was blessedly over. Slayton had never quite understood why the national
     anthem always had to be played for races and side bets.
    He took the wheel of his LeMans, and his seconds strapped him in. His gloved hands gave a final check to the roll bar, he
     revved the engine some to check for the bounce of the tachometer needle, and, without thinking, glanced back at the stands,
     to the box where the laughing woman had been. He saw her watching him. When their eyes made contact, she waved to him.
    A final check of the mirrors while he heard the starter’s count-down. He kept his eyes peeled on the track, depending on his
     ears to hear the gun fire above the cacophony of engine noise and on his peripheral vision for the downsweep of black-and-white
     checkered flag.
    He nudged the accelerator with his right foot, and made the LeMans jump from the line. He had enough play left to jump his
     car out in front of his competitors once he had left the line.
    Slayton was an excellent racer. With his fourteen- or fifteen-inch starting advantage, he nosed the car inward, toward the
     close track. He had the edge over cars whose drivers drew the favored positions. He forced one and then another driver to
     take his dust as he steered relentlessly for the inside track.
    Slayton had reached better than one hundred miles an hour in twelve seconds, a credit to his father’s excellent teaching,
     he thought, as he eyed the instrument panel. More power was needed as he went into the turn, he noticed, or else he would
     hit the wall.
    He gritted his teeth, and the muscles in his arms tensed as he held the wheel in a perfect straight line, making sure the
     wheels were in a square. Then he punched down hard on the accelerator, delivering a sudden burst of torque to the power train.
     The LeMans held the track as if it were glued to the pavement. Slowly, Slayton inched the wheel into the turn, minimizing
     the