The Shadow Hunter

turn, he leaped onto the hood, face to face with the driver. Over the ringing in his ears he heard a male voice from the backseat shout, “
Get down!
”
    Hickle pumped the Marlin and fired a shot into the windshield at point-blank range. Charred shell wadding blew back in his face. He shut his eyes against the debris. When he opened them, he saw a hole in the windshield, exposing the Lincoln’s interior. He swung the shotgun into the hole and fired twice, not aiming, hoping for a lucky hit or a ricochet.
    The Lincoln slammed on its brakes. He thought he must have hit the driver until, with a scream of tires, the Town Car snapped into reverse. Inertia rolled him off the hood. He flopped onto the pavement, and the Lincoln stopped. One headlight was dark. The other pinned him in its glare.
    He knew what was about to happen even before the car shot forward, trying to run him down.
    Reflexes saved him. He plunged off the road, taking refuge in the trees. Behind him, the pursuing car slammed to a halt at the edge of the woods. Hickle threw himself prone on the ground, below the cone of glare from the one intact headlight. By a miracle the shotgun was still in his hand, and now he had a clear view of the Lincoln’s underbelly.
    He fired a single shot, targeting the chassis.
    Sparks and broken metal showered the earth, and he knew that one part of the vehicle was not armored.
    The Town Car retreated onto the road, but Hickle was already scrambling after it, cramming more shells into the gun. He fired four times, aiming low. The Lincoln veered away, skidding on something wet and shiny, which was gasoline. He had ruptured the fuel tank.
    “Fuck you,” Hickle gasped, “I got you now!”
    He reloaded, tramping through pools of gasoline, and fired again and again, pursuing the wounded car as it reversed down Gateway. The sedan wobbled on damaged tires and bent wheels. It accelerated, still backing up, and for a moment he thought it would get away.
    Then the gas caught fire.
    Abruptly the entire front section of the Lincoln was burning—tires, chassis, gas-soaked chrome. The Town Car careened to a stop, and Hickle plucked the last shells from his pocket and loaded them as he loped toward his quarry with death in mind.
    Inside the Lincoln there had been chaos and terror from the moment Travis heard Abby’s warning and shouted at Drury to back up. Kris had looked at him with an unvoiced question as the first shots crackled out of the darkness. Shotgun fire.
    The TPS staff car was shielded by panels of aramid fibrous armor, lighter than steel and nearly as impenetrable, lining the doors, roof, quarter areas, and pillar posts. All the glass in the vehicle had been replaced by bullet-resistant sheets of multilayered transparent composite, a lamination of glass and polycarbonate. The tires were fitted with antiballistic runflat 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 armoredvehicle 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 shotshells 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