Paul Hollis grew up during a time when the notion of a shrinking world was still in its infancy. People lived in rural communities or in city neighborhoods, rarely venturing far beyond the bordered rim of their lives. But as a kid, Paul tumbled off the edge of the yard reaching for greener grass. Having lived in twelve states and eventually working in all fifty, he fell in love early with seeing the world on someone else’s money. Since then, he has lived abroad nine years while working in forty-eight countries, spanning five continents. These experiences helped inspire the novels in The Hollow Man series. From traveling through Europe as a young man, to flying nearly three million miles which took him nowhere near home, to teaching companies worldwide about coming global implications, as a world tourist Paul Hollis brings his own unique viewpoint to his mesmerizing thrillers.
Paul has a dual BA in English literature and psychology from the University of Illinois. In addition to having worked for IBM and others in worldwide physical and video security, he is an active member of International Thriller Writers and the St. Louis Writers Guild, as well as an international conference speaker.
It was a dream.
I am fairly certain of that now. A shadowy sixteenth century cathedral emerged
from the mist, and I found myself waiting for a funeral procession to begin.
Except for the large rat that brushed past my leg, I was alone in the darkness,
though it felt like someone was watching me. The tower bell was tolling
sharply, and each numbing stroke sucked a little more confidence from my bones,
right through the muscle, and it settled like sweat on my skin. I wanted to
push the melting courage back inside to strengthen my spine, but I couldn’t
move. I was getting weaker by the second and my body would no longer support
the weight of my own thoughts.
The heavy timber
doors of the church swung wide, and in the winter moonlight I saw a robed
priest appear at the opening. With his head bowed over scriptures for the dead,
he mumbled soothing passages as he baby-stepped down three stone stairs to the
ground. Six pallbearers followed with their burden, solemnly gliding along the
gravel path to the waiting coach and restless horses. Their sandals made no
sound on the hard surface even though they passed so close that I could smell
death on the air around them. Gaunt, hollow eyes reflected heavy hearts but the
men persevered to the coach where they lowered the plain casket to the earth.
The coffin was a
small mahogany enclosure made for a half-grown child. The top was covered with
pale red lace that stood out against the anemic landscape. A sudden stale
breeze caught the cloth and blew it into the night. A thin pallid girl of
perhaps twelve sat up in the box and began clapping in time to the tolling
bell. She slowly turned, pointing in my direction and I saw blood running down
the side of her face from a bullet wound near the scalp. The child beckoned me
toward her.
“I can help
you,” she said, not quite looking at me with colorless, blind eyes.
“I’ve already
told you before that you can’t. No one can help me now,” I said.
“Yes,” she
emphasized.
“How?”
“Come closer.”
She absently wiped at the blood, but it only smeared her ashen face.
“Can you stop
the bell from ringing?” The sound scraped across my raw nerves.
“You’re a
strange policeman,” she smiled. “Why do you still search for him?”
“You know why.
He slaughtered half the British Embassy, including you and I need to find him.”
“Be careful of Chaban,” she said. “He is a
creature of evil and he’s brought you here to witness his power over you.”
She stared past
me into the dark night. I turned in the direction she was looking to see if
someone was standing beside me, but there was no one in the blackness that
swallowed us.
“Where is he?” I
asked.
She suddenly
frowned.
“He’s been
watching the watcher for a long time now. Look behind you, not in front.”
With vacant eyes
still fixed on the dead unknown, her watery figure faded to a thin wisp and
blew through me leaving cold fear in its wake. My soul parted like the Red Sea
and when it closed again, there was another scar. It was always the same. I
needed more but she was gone.
The sound of the
bell shook the emptiness twice more before the gray-black dissolved into total
oblivion and I started to wake. The
telephone was ringing; it hadn’t been a church bell at all. My head was heavy
and my body was barely functioning. Unsteadily, I reached for the pillow that covered
the handset.
“Si?”
“Status?” the
voice asked in English.
“Unchanged.”
“Suspend
surveillance on Chaban. I need you to go to morning Mass.”
“It’s
Wednesday,” I said.
“It’s Madrid.
People go to church every day in Spain.”
“Who’s the
mark?”
“Luis Carrero
Blanco.”
“The prime
minister?” I stumbled on the words.
“I’m
short-handed, kid,” the voice admitted. “You’re right there. You’ll do.”
I had followed
dozens over the past year but none so high ranking.
“Mass is at nine
o’clock,” he said. “A dossier is in the news box next to Museo del Prado.”
A thread of
moonlight filtered through the window and reflected on the clock face. Still
two hours until dawn. I rubbed crust from tired eyes with both hands. It had
been a long time since I’d had a full night’s sleep. Every time I closed my
eyes, the little girl was there waiting for me. I desperately needed to
hibernate for the rest of the winter, but for now I’d have to settle for a
strong cup of coffee. December had already been a long month, and it wasn’t
over yet.
For the last six
months, Blanco had been the prime minister of Spain, hand-picked by
Generalissimo Francisco Franco himself. He had fought with the Nationalist
forces in the Spanish Civil War and had quickly become one of the leader’s
closest collaborators. After the Nationalist victory and installation of Franco
as supreme commander of Spain, Blanco’s power had grown with El Caudillo’s
favor. Last June when he had been appointed prime minister, Blanco had also
been named top deputy to Franco. Now that the dictator’s health was failing, it
was only a matter of time before Blanco assumed control of the country.
At 8:50 a.m. on
December 19, 1973, I was standing across the street from San Francisco de Borja
Church on Calle de Serrano, waiting for the traffic signal to change. With its
large buildings and attached park, the grounds covered a city block in the
heart of Madrid. The church was at its center, standing majestically in a
nondescript, middle-class neighborhood. Separated by a wide passage on the
right, the monastery and office complex occupied a five-story, U-shaped
structure with an inner balcony overlooking a courtyard. To the left lay an
unattended tract of land with a dozen barren trees irregularly clumped amid
several rough patches that I believe someone once called a lawn but it was now
decayed and brown from neglect. The park had become a casualty of the dry
Spanish winter and big-city pollution.
The inside of
the church was not unlike a thousand other Catholic churches across Europe. The
altar boasted an elaborate backdrop ornately fashioned from gold and other
precious metals brought back from the New World. The nave floors and pews were
made of beautiful padouk wood from Southeast Africa. But the dossier noted San
Francisco de Borja’s most prized possessions were its collection of sacred
relics. In the treasury lay the full body of a mummified saint in holy dress
and an assortment of fingers and tongues from martyrs who had stuck out an appendage
a bit too far in mixed company.
Somewhere there
also had to be the proverbial strip of wood salvaged from the table at the Last
Supper. Every church had one, a chunk of blackened cedar or cypress nailed to a
wall where every tourist might stand in awe of its place in history. If all the
pieces could have been somehow reassembled, the dinner table would have been
massive. I imagined Christ yelling down a hundred-meter table to Peter or John,
“I said pass the potatoes, not the tomatoes! Oh, never mind!”
I was brought
back to reality and no doubt from the brink of eternal damnation for my
thoughts by the short, ball-shaped figure of Luis Carrero Blanco walking along
the prayer alcoves lining the side of the main hall. He wore an expensive
cream-colored business suit and had a flamboyant stride but what impressed me
most were his bushy eyebrows which preceded him by two paces. Accompanied by
his full-time bodyguard, Police Inspector Juan Fernandez, Blanco genuflected
and crossed himself before settling into the second row.
Seeing a single
bodyguard with a top-ranking official was not all that uncommon these days in
Europe but this pair seemed more like old friends. They sat shoulder to
shoulder and spoke quietly, exchanging soft smiles. The two men had been
together for many years, and perhaps a little complacency had set in. After
all, the last head of state assassinated in Western Europe was back in 1934.
Those were wild times. Today, the world was much more civilized, and Franco was
certainly in control of his own country. With harsh restrictions on personal
liberties, any disruption under existing martial law would have been
unthinkable.
I turned toward
a hand on my shoulder.
“Sir, I see you
are English,” said an unshaven man standing over me. His speech was heavily
accented but understandable. The man wore a light brown, wool overcoat that
would have flopped open had he not held it together with fists in his pockets.
Heavy boots and a pair of loose-fitting broadcloth pants made me think he may
have been a farm worker. The hair around his cap was a shiny black, though
flecks of gray dotted his beard stubble, and I guessed his age was close to
fifty. He was uncomfortable, apologetic standing next to the pew.
“No sir, you’re
mistaken,” I said.
“Ah, yes,
American. My first thought,” he confirmed to himself.
I wondered why
Americans were so easily identified wherever we went. I prided myself in
disappearing within the thin cultural fabric of a country no matter where I
found myself but obviously, I was still being schooled on exactly how to blend
into the surroundings. These lessons were important for a humble government
tourist like me. Be invisible or be dead. There was no in-between when one was
finding people who did not want to be found, watching people who did not want
to be watched, and learning from those who did not want to teach.
“Mass is
beginning.” I tapped a finger to my lips.
Pushing me down
the pew with his body, the Spaniard slid in beside me and crossed himself. We
sat in silence, pretending to listen to the liturgy. I heard a heavy rattle in
his breath above the priest’s Latin. He was a man who needed a cigarette. For
some reason, that bothered me but his five-day stubble really irritated me,
mostly because it took me forever to grow facial hair. Even then, my cheek
would still be as barren as the top of an old pirate’s head and feel as smooth
as a French prostitute’s thigh.
“I’m a poor
student. I don’t have any money,” I whispered.
“I know what you
are.” My eyes snapped in his direction but the Spaniard was intent on the
sermon as the priest professed something in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Finally, he said, “Tell America that España will soon be free again.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know as
well as me, young one. Do not make us send you home in a box.” He smiled. “We
are no threat unless we’re threatened.” He crossed himself and rose to leave.
“Do you mean
because Franco’s ill and he’ll die soon?”
“I thought you
were smarter,” he sighed. The man stared down at me for a long time before
turning away.
It wasn’t far
from the truth when I said I had no idea what he was saying. Since arriving in
Spain the week before, my entire focus was on tracking the man who recently
held an embassy for ransom and I was so close I could smell his aftershave. But
early this morning I was jerked off course and ended up in church sitting next
to a misinformed lunatic. I needed time to figure out why I was now babysitting
a prime minister.
Thank you Paul for sharing an excerpt from your story. I'm hooked and looking forward to reading this novel. You can discover more about Paul Hollis at the following links.
Website: http://thehollowmanseries.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheHollowManSeries
Twitter: https://twitter.com/HollowManSeries
And here's where you can see the Book Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8PIxPlaAPw
Next week Brian Brennan of Calgary Alberta will be featured in the 4Q Interview. A very interesting man.
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