The Hollow Man Excerpt 5

The Hollow Man   |     The Hollow Man Series, International Espionage​

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I ran down the center of the road with a line of cars on either side. Several people had grown restless of the jam and rolled down side windows, craning long necks into my path. One curious man stepped out of his vehicle right in front of me. As I bumped by him, I told him to remain in the car. It was police business.

I ran 100 meters as the highway inclined to a small summit. There it was. The metallic-blue Renault Alpine A110 sat five or six cars in front of me in the outside lane. Its wheels were cranked hard to the right and Chaban fisted the horn intermittently but the accident blocking the highway wasn’t about to move any time soon. A multi-car crash beyond the crest of the hill had ripped apart two cars and another was on fire. The police and fire brigade were busily attending to victims and vehicles.

Chaban saw movement in the rearview mirror. He engaged the transmission and forced the Renault to the narrow berm on the outside, clipping the tail of a Ford Cortina as I ran up on his bumper. Swerving half off the pavement, a spray of deadly shrapnel was launched as the Renault’s right tires dug into the golf ball-sized rocks on the soft shoulder. Hesitating only slightly, I ran after the car as it vanished in a dust cloud.

I heard horns blaring above the crushing of stones under my feet and someone was shouting off to the left but I kept running. A low red compact turned out into my path. I slammed across the hood. Barely stopping long enough to glimpse the shocked woman behind the steering wheel, I kept going. There were flashes of movement all along the line now. Drivers were gunning engines, inching out of their lanes.

A sudden burst of gunfire caught me by surprise. People were shooting; I guess the French really didn’t like traffic jams much. Shotgun pellets tore into a Volkswagen bus next to me and a sliver of glass bounced off my cheek as I ran through the explosion. Someone was coming up fast and I heard the sickening thud of a body against solid metal. Another barrage split the thick air around me. Chaban had backup.

A policeman jogged toward me waving his hands. As he dodged in front of a small black truck, his chest exploded from a third shotgun blast. I jumped headfirst for the ditch. The speeding car swerved toward me, hit a boulder and veered back on the shoulder. Up and running again, I counted three men in the vehicle before an arm reached around and fired at me. Hitting the gravel again, I watched as they vanished into the cloud behind the blue Renault. I threw a handful of rocks after nothing and swore in three languages.