MIchael Prescott - The Shadow hunter

The tires were fitted with antiballistic run flat inserts that allowed them to hold their shape even when ruptured.

The level of protection these features offered was moderately high, but there were points of weakness.

The ballistic glass could stop handgun rounds and other small arms fire, but repeated blasts from a heavy-gauge shotgun might penetrate.

The armor plating provided perimeter and roof protection, but the floor and the underside of the chassis were unshielded, vulnerable to attack from below. A fully armored vehicle offered greater protection but, because of the increased weight, less maneuverability. Tradeoffs had been made.

Travis wondered if those tradeoffs had been advisable as the first two shot shells chipped and splintered the Lincoln's windshield.

After that, there was no time to wonder about anything.

The range of his thinking narrowed to the immediate concern of keeping Kris alive. He told her to get down, but the words didn't register with her. There was stark panic on her face, every muscle drawn taut.

When the Town Car blundered partly off the road and was briefly stuck in the dirt, Travis actually felt the shiver of pure fear that rocked her in her seat. Then they were back on the road but no longer positioned to go either forward or back, and Drury had to spend a few desperate seconds hauling the car around in a ragged turn. That was when Hickle opened fire on the side of the car, trying to punch through the doors.

Kris screamed. Travis saw the door panel cave inward a few inches under the impact of the multiple hits. But the armor held, and the Lincoln straightened out. As Drury accelerated, Hickle threw himself onto the hood.

Travis saw the shotgun kiss the weakened glass, and he knew the next blast would open up the car to a direct assault. He seized Kris and shoved her to the floor as two explosions from the shotgun echoed inside the car.

Exactly what happened next Travis didn't know.

Bending to cover Kris with his body, he was aware only of a succession of stops and starts, the car braking, then reversing, then flying forward and braking again, and then another shot, this one striking low, and more low hits as the Lincoln backed off and screamed in reverse toward the guardhouse four hundred yards away.

The low hits scared Travis most of all. He was thinking of the unshielded underside of the car. He was thinking of the fuel tank.

He held Kris tight and heard her whispering the same words over and over in a hushed, urgent monotone:

"God help us… God help us… God help us…"

Then there was fire.

Travis heard the whoosh of igniting gasoline even before the sudden orange glare lit up the front windows.

By luck or skill Hickle had punctured the gas tank, and sparks from successive shots had set the gas ablaze.

The Lincoln would be enveloped in fire within seconds.

The car might not blow up-gasoline was less combustible than Hollywood movies liked to pretend-but it would certainly burn to cinders, as would its occupants.

He pulled Kris upright and yelled at Drury to evacuate the vehicle.

The car stopped at a crazy angle halfway down Gateway Road, and Drury got out, or at least Travis thought he did. He couldn't be sure, not when his full attention was focused on prying open the rear door and dragging Kris out of the car and away from the spreading flames.

He pulled her into the bushes at the roadside, then drew his Walther and turned in a crouch, scanning the dark for Hickle, who had to be out there somewhere, because if anything was clear and obvious in the midst of this insanity, it was that Hickle would not give up until Kris was dead.

The car was a flaming pile. It threw off a moist heat that slapped Hickle in the face as he sprinted closer, the shotgun gripped with both hands. He became aware that he was favoring his left leg. Must have turned his ankle when he rolled off the hood onto the pavement. It didn't matter. He was still mobile, and the car had been abandoned.

Kris was outside, unprotected.

Only one shot was needed to finish things.

Kris had been riding in the back of the Lincoln. The rear passenger door hung ajar. Hickle ran toward that side of the road and saw her on the roadside, a huddle of fear and shock. With her, a man Hickle didn't recognize.

Not her husband. A man with a gun.

Hickle saw the gun come up fast and flung himself to the ground, taking cover behind the wreckage of the Lincoln, then sensed movement nearby and turned in time to see the driver taking aim with a pistol from behind the open front door. Hickle fired the shotgun, and the man went down. Hit? Hard to tell. Hickle darted around the door, preparing to fire again, but it wasn't necessary. The driver was alive but out of commission, writhing on the pavement, his pistol dropped and forgotten.

Hickle ignored him. He had no interest in delivering a coup de grace.

The man meant nothing to him. It was Kris he wanted.

He scrambled to the rear of the Lincoln, staying low.

The air was brutally hot. Alongside the rear bumper he peered out and saw Kris and her defender retreating farther into the foliage. He jerked the Marlin's trigger twice, blowing sprays of shot at them, and saw them go down, but he didn't think they'd been hit. They had dived for cover.

Muzzle flashes from the foliage. Kris's bodyguard was shooting back.

Hickle snapped off another shot, then retreated to the front of the Lincoln, moving fast.

He had a plan now. They thought he was positioned at the rear of the car. They wouldn't expect him to charge from the front.

He sprang out from behind the car and instantly collided with something-somebody-who fell in a heap at his feet.

Kris.

She had panicked and run. Run right into him.

She looked up and saw him, and the look on her face was the most priceless gift he had ever received. It was a look of stark fear, of total resignation and final submission.

It told him that he had won and she had lost, that he was the master and she the victim.

All of this lasted less than a second, no longer than it took for him to swing the shotgun toward her, the muzzle stamping its cold kiss on her brow. He pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

The gun was empty.

He registered this fact, and then a pistol's report rang out from the roadside, the bullet slicing past him, inches away.

The man with the handgun. Coming.

Hickle turned and fled.

He had no choice. There were no more shells in his pockets.

Another crack of pistol fire behind him. He reached the far side of the road and dived into the woods, stumbling over something that got caught up in his feet. His duffel bag.

There might be more shells in the bag, but he had no time to dig for them. There was the rifle, fully loaded, but he couldn't pull it out and take aim, not with an armed man pursuing him.

Anyway, he had lost his chance. Even if he could kill Kris's protector, the other TPS agents must already be rushing to the scene, and so was the guard, and the police too-everybody.

It was finished.

Hickle slung the duffel over his shoulder and charged through the trees, head down, panting hard.

He tried not to think about what had happened, how close he had come, how badly he had failed. He knew that if he thought about it, he would simply stop running and fall on his face and cry like a child, because the world had cheated him and life was so terribly unfair.

Travis pursued Hickle a few yards into the woods and saw him disappear among the eucalyptus trees and the deep drifts of weeds. Briefly he considered following, but looking after Kris was his highest priority.

He doubled back and found her kneeling, dazed, on the pavement, her face streaked with tears, eyes wide and unblinking.