The Shadow Hunter

his hand.
    She took the cell phone from her purse and powered it on. In the glow of the liquid crystal display she found the menu button and navigated to the first number stored in memory, the number of Travis’s mobile phone. She speed-dialed it.
    Wyatt crouched beside her, saying nothing. She knew he had many questions to ask, and she loved him just a little for not asking them yet.
    Her call bounced to voice mail.
    She hissed a curse and redialed.
    Voice mail again, damn it.
    “What’s the matter?” Wyatt whispered.
    “Can’t get through.” She forced the words past gritted teeth.
    “You can dial the operator, have the phone company break in on the call.”
    “It’ll take too long.” She called again. Voice mail. “Come on, Paul, clear the line.”
    “I’ll cut to the chase.” Hastings’s voice crackled in Travis’s ear. “We started with Trendline Investments. Trendline, as a corporate entity, sits on the board of directors of something called ProFuture Opportunities, also incorporated in the Netherlands Antilles. There are three other companies on ProFuture’s board—all dummy corporations, as far as we can tell. One of them is named GrayFoxx Financial. You following this?”
    Travis nodded, his gaze never leaving the blur of shadows at the edge of the road, “Go on.”
    “Here’s the link. GrayFoxx is the largest shareholder of Western Regional Resources.”
    “Bang,” Travis said softly.
    “You got it. Essentially, GrayFoxx owns Western Regional, and GrayFoxx and Trendline jointly own ProFuture. Our guess is that Mr. Barwood—”
    “Owns all of them,” Travis finished.
    “Right. He set it all up as shells within shells, very complicated, hard to trace. But we nailed him.” There was pride in Hastings’s voice. Travis supposed he was entitled to it.
    “Good work. Now get some rest.” Travis ended the call.
    Twenty yards to the intersection. The Town Car slowed in preparation for a sharp left turn.
    “What was that about?” Kris asked.
    Travis couldn’t tell her now. Later was the right time. Later, when she was safe.
    “Some other case,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”
    She frowned at him, her reporter’s instincts evidently disputing his answer, but before she could ask anything further, the phone chirped again. Was it Hastings, calling with additional details? For a moment Travis considered shutting off the phone to silence it.
    Ten yards.
    Oh, hell. He took the call. “Travis,” he snapped. “This had better be—”
    He didn’t finish. On the other end of the line was a hoarse, desperate, anguished voice, Abby’s voice, and she was screaming.
    “Code Red, Paul, you hear me,
Hickle is Code Red!
”

35
    The Town Car was turning onto Malibu Reserve Drive when its brakes squealed, and suddenly the car was reversing fast, and Hickle knew they were on to him.
    He sprang out of the foliage, the twelve-gauge in both hands. From this angle he didn’t have a clear shot at the side windows so he opened fire on the windshield, hoping to take out the driver. The glass starred but didn’t shatter. Behind the web of fractures he saw the driver spinning the wheel as he backed onto Gateway. Once lined up, the Lincoln could reverse straight to the gate, where the guard must already be dialing 911.
    Hickle fired two more shots at the windshield, emptying the Marlin, but although the glass buckled, it still did not give way. The shots distracted the driver long enough for the car to skid partially off the road at a crazy angle. For a moment the Lincoln was stuck, its right rear tire mired in dirt.
    Hickle ditched his duffel bag and charged the car, reloading on the run. He saw movement in the backseat, two figures. One of them was Kris.
    The driver shifted out of reverse and plowed forward, but by the time he was back on the road, Hickle had run alongside. Hefired three shells at the car’s side panel, hoping to blow it apart. No good. The car absorbed the shots with only superficial damage.
    Armor plating. Bulletproof glass. JackBNimble had never mentioned anything about that. Either he hadn’t known, or this was some kind of setup. Hickle had no time to puzzle it out. The Lincoln was executing a clumsy K-turn as the driver tried to orient the car toward the exit. Hickle fired one shot at the front tire, puncturing it, but it didn’t go flat. Even the tires were bullet-resistant.
    He dug in the pocket of his windbreaker and reloaded. As the Lincoln completed its