Page 134 of The Atlas Maneuver

She signed the bill for her breakfast and headed out the hotel’s main entrance. The concierge had arranged for her to use a hotel car for the day. She thought it the most innocuous of vehicles, one that should allow her to move around unnoticed. She left the grounds and headed out, driving along on a two-lane highway. Her destination lay about ten kilometers away. Traffic was light for the morning, only a couple of cars and a bus had passed in the opposite lane. The weather was perfect, bright and sunny and warm.

Something banged.

Loud.

A tire blown?

The steering wheel lurched to the right. One of the front tires must have punctured. She fought to slow down and regain control.

Then another bang.

Two tires?

The rear end of the vehicle swung left. She tried to counter by steering in the opposite direction, but the timing of the blowouts, as she was making a sharp right turn, compounded her inability to tame the car. The passenger side slammed hard into the guardrail. Momentum kept the vehicle going, up and over the top of the rail, then down, somersaulting, turning over and over, crashing against the rock face, twisting, screeching as the metal pounded against the stone, bouncing off a ledge, finishing in a crumpled heap.

Amazingly, right-side up.

The seat belt and shoulder harness had kept her in place and the air bag had deployed.

She’d never experienced anything like that before.

A damn car accident?

After all she’d been through?

She tested her arms and legs. Everything moved. Nothing seemed broken. She tried the door, which partially opened. It took effort but she forced it to move enough outward so that she could roll out onto the ground.

Her head spun to the point of nausea.

Her stomach erupted and she vomited her breakfast, retching until her gut hurt. A concussion? Probably. She stared upward, trying to clear her head. That was a lot of tumbles down fifty meters of rocky bank. She needed to find her cell phone and call for help. It had been resting in the center console, surely tossed about during the crash.

She heard footsteps. Approaching. She rolled her body over and saw a man walking her way. Slow, steady, deliberate.

Thank God.

“I need help,” she said.

The man did not reply.

He just kept walking, then stopped before her.

“I had a wreck,” she said.

He was middle-aged with short-cropped black hair and continued to make no effort to render any assistance.

Which concerned her.

More vertigo swept through her brain and she retched again.

“Not so tough now, are you?” he said.

She stared up from the ground.

He held a gun.

But she wanted to know, “Who are you? Why are you here?”

He did not answer.