Amir looked at Connor with a horrified expression, the dust on his face making him appear pale with fright. ‘I think they intend to finish the job!’
Connor shouted to their guide. ‘Can’t you go any faster?’
‘You two always in a hurry!’ remarked Zhen with a laugh. ‘Lucky for you the battery is fully charged!’
Zhen flicked a switch on the handlebars and the electric motor kicked in. The rickshaw took on a burst of speed and they zipped along the road. Behind, the van forced its way between the lanes of cars, scooters and taxis, determined not to let them out of its sight. But the rickshaw’s smaller size and nimbleness allowed them to weave through gaps in the traffic and they steadily pulled ahead.
‘We’re losing them,’ said Amir with relief.
But then the rickshaw came to a halt.
‘What’s the problem?’ asked Connor.
‘No problem,’ Zhen replied breezily. ‘Traffic lights.’
As the lights stubbornly stayed on red, the traffic began to clog up. A dozen or so cars back, the telecom van had stopped too and the masked man got out. He started to wend his way towards them.
‘Know any more shortcuts?’ Connor asked.
‘Of course!’ replied Zhen, pulling off the road and on to the pavement. Manically ringing the bike’s bell, Zhen forged a path through the crowds of pedestrians, then turned off down a side alley and cut through to an adjacent road. As they swung left to join the traffic again, Connor glanced back and spotted the masked figure standing at the far end of the alley. Their pursuer had apparently given up the chase.
‘See the red building ahead? The old one with the curved roof?’ Zhen called out as he continued with the tour, oblivious to everything that had gone on behind. ‘That’s the Dàjìng Gé Pavilion. It sits on top of the last remaining section of the old city walls. Originally built in the sixteenth century to protect Shanghai against pirates, now most of it has gone …’
As their guide pedalled them in the direction of People’s Square, every so often pointing out landmarks and rattling off guidebook facts, Connor and Amir engaged in a frantic whispered discussion.
‘Mannequins! Wrecking balls! What the heck happened back there?’ asked Amir.
‘We were set up,’ said Connor.
Amir wiped the dust and grime from his face. ‘By the colonel?’
‘If he’s the traitor, then yes.’ Connor frowned deeply. ‘But that doesn’t make any sense. Why would he want to destroy his own organization? Why would he want to kill us?’
Amir shrugged. ‘The enemy could’ve intercepted the message, or else the text was never sent by the colonel in the first place.’
Connor’s concern for the colonel spiked and he swallowed hard as a stark realization hit him. ‘If they’ve got his encrypted phone, then they must have him too.’
Amir slumped back into the rickshaw’s plastic seat. ‘So what do we do now?’
‘Stay alive,’ said Connor grimly. ‘Whoever attacked HQ clearly wants us dead. Their aim must be to wipe out the entire organization. We’re going to need all our bodyguard skills just to protect one another. Then our next priority is to contact –’
‘Hold on. Do you hear that?’ interrupted Amir.
‘What?’
‘That high-pitched buzzing.’ Amir looked up and searched the sky. ‘There!’ He pointed to a small drone hovering high over their rickshaw. It appeared to be the same one that had spied in through the office window. ‘We’ve got to get off the street and into hiding, otherwise we’ll never evade their surveillance.’
Connor tapped their guide on the shoulder, interrupting his commentary. ‘Is there somewhere we can stay?’
Zhen nodded. ‘I know a good hostel. Cheap! Well, cheap for Shanghai.’
‘Take us there then, but can you –’
Suddenly the rickshaw gave a jolt as a vehicle shunted them from behind.
‘Báichī sīj ī!’ yelled Zhen at the driver, waving his fist in fury.
The driver evidently took offence at this and rammed into the rickshaw again, the impact lifting the front wheel off the ground. Almost bucked from his bike, Zhen screamed abuse at the man as they were forced at increasing speed down the road. Clinging to the rickshaw for dear life, Connor turned round to see a silver Mercedes on their bumper. In the front passenger seat sat the woman with the steel-framed glasses.
‘STOP! STOP!’ cried Amir, pointing ahead in panic. The rickshaw was on a collision course with the back of a parked truck.
Zhen battled to regain control of his steering as the Mercedes’ engine revved and growled, accelerating them towards the truck. Bracing himself for the impact, Connor had a sickening vision of his own mangled and bloody body sandwiched between the wreckage of the rickshaw and the silver bonnet of the Mercedes. But at the last moment the rickshaw’s front wheel touched back down and Zhen swerved violently to the right. There was a screech of tyres as the Mercedes narrowly missed the truck itself. But the sudden turn had been too sharp for the rickshaw and it began to keel over like a ship in a storm. Almost thrown from their seats, Connor and Amir clung to the frame.
With the rickshaw at tipping point, Zhen yelled, ‘Lean!’
Connor and Amir both threw their weight into the turn and the rickshaw righted itself. As soon as all three wheels were back on the ground, Zhen twisted the electric engine’s throttle to the max and shot away down the pavement.
Wheels spinning and rubber burning, the silver Mercedes followed, mounting the kerb and driving with homicidal speed. People leapt aside in panic, cyclists collided with each other, and those on scooters went hurtling into shop fronts.
‘Faster!’ Connor shouted as the Mercedes gained on them.
‘I’m going … as fast … as I can!’ gasped Zhen, his legs pumping and the electric motor whining. Sweat poured from his brow and his breathing became ragged and strained.
The Mercedes was almost on top of them when, in a skilful and unexpected manoeuvre, Zhen veered off the pavement and down a side lane. Connor heard the Mercedes brake hard, tyres squealing on tarmac.
He looked back. The lane was too narrow for the car.
‘Good work, Zhen. We got away!’ Amir yelled.
But Connor wasn’t so jubilant. The insect-like buzz of the drone continued to hound them from above.
Exiting the lane on to a backstreet, their guide braked and the rickshaw came to a shuddering halt. ‘You two OK?’ asked Zhen.
Connor and Amir nodded. Back up the lane, the woman in the steel-framed glasses was stepping out of the car and talking rapidly into her phone.
‘Sorry about that,’ Zhen continued, his jet-black almond eyes expressing deep regret. ‘Shanghai drivers can be a little impatient.’
‘It isn’t your fault,’ said Connor, glancing up into the grey sky. The drone’s high-pitched hum was setting his nerves on edge. They needed to get moving and into hiding. Fast.
Noticing Connor’s troubled frown, their guide asked hesitantly, ‘You … want to end the tour?’
‘No, no, let’s keep going,’ Connor insisted with an encouraging smile.
‘And lose that drone,’ added Amir.
Zhen looked up at the tiny craft hovering above the rooftops. ‘Is that thing following you?’
Amir offered their guide a sheepish look. ‘Er … maybe.’
Zhen narrowed his eyes. ‘Why? Are you in trouble with the police?’
‘No,’ Connor replied truthfully.
‘Then what?’ demanded their guide, stubbornly refusing to set off.
A guttural roar of engines alerted them to two motorbikes thundering down the lane, their riders nodding briefly to the woman in the steel-framed glasses as they zoomed past the Mercedes. A second pair of motorcycles raced into the backstreet, closing in on either side of the rickshaw to block them in a pincer movement.
‘No time to explain,’ said Connor. ‘Please just go!’
Zhen stared open-mouthed at the approaching bikers. ‘Wh-who
are they?’
‘GO!’ urged Amir as the lead motorcyclist drew a handgun.
Still their guide didn’t move and Connor realized he’d gone into shock. The instinctive reaction to an unexpected threat was fight, flight or freeze. And, just their luck, their guide had opted to freeze!
Before Connor could bring Zhen to his senses, the motorcyclist took aim and fired. The bullet hit Amir square in the back, his friend having dived to shield their guide. Amir cried out and flopped forward in his seat. Ducking down, Connor threw himself protectively over his friend as a second bullet pinged off the brickwork.
‘GO! GO! GO!’ he yelled, kicking out at their guide.
The boot to the back of his seat snapped Zhen out of his frozen state. Twisting the throttle and pumping the pedals, he bolted down a nearby alleyway. The motorbikes followed in hot pursuit.
‘Amir! Speak to me!’ pleaded Connor. He feared a nightmare repeat of Eduardo’s tragic death, blood staining the rickshaw’s plastic seat, a bullet having ripped through his friend’s heart.
Amir rolled in his arms and groaned. ‘Oww, that really hurt!’
Connor exhaled with relief. The bulletproof jacket had done its job. Amir was alive. But Connor knew from bitter personal experience the extreme pain his friend was going through. The bullet might not have penetrated his jacket but the blunt trauma from the gunshot was the equivalent of being kicked by an angry mule. Amir would be winded at best, and could even be suffering a broken rib or two. Either way, his friend would be out of action for the next few minutes at least.
Another bullet whizzed overhead, shredding through the overhanging laundry.
Zhen let out a yelp. ‘Why are they trying to kill us?’
‘No idea,’ Connor shouted, doing his best to shield Amir with their Go-bags. ‘Just lose them!’
‘I can lose the drone … in the backstreets of … Old Town,’ their guide panted, cutting a sharp left down a market street and weaving manically between irate shoppers. ‘But you’ll have to deal … with the motorbikes!’
Connor looked behind. The four bikers were hard on their tail, darting and buzzing like angry wasps. People scattered and shouted abuse as the convoy ploughed through the throng. One of the bikes edged closer on their left-hand side, trying to overtake them.
‘Swerve left!’ Connor ordered their guide.
Zhen veered hard and sealed the gap, forcing the rider into a stall selling mobile-phone accessories. As glittering plastic covers and selfie-sticks went flying, a second biker tried to slip past on the rickshaw’s other side. He was almost through … until the sudden appearance of a moped from an alley blocked his attempt, forcing him to brake sharply and fall back. But, with engines faster and more powerful than the rickshaw, Connor realized it was only a matter of time before their pursuers managed to overtake them. Thankfully, the busy streets prevented the lead biker from attempting another potshot at them with his handgun.
‘I can’t … keep this up … much longer,’ gasped Zhen, his voice high and panicky.
With the electric engine whining in protest, the rickshaw zigzagged madly through Old Town’s backstreets. Quickly lost amid the laundry and overhanging rooftops, they appeared to have shaken off the drone. But the bikers continued to hound them like a pack of wild dogs. Connor knew he’d have to go on the attack himself if they were to stand any chance of escaping their pursuers. As the rickshaw skirted past a hawker selling plastic buckets, pans and brushes, Connor snatched a wooden broom from the man’s cart.
‘Zéi!’ shouted the man angrily before his cart was knocked over by the racing motorbikes, his buckets and pans getting crushed beneath their wheels.
Armed with the broom, Connor fended off the nearest biker. He stabbed at the man’s chest in an effort to dislodge him from his seat. This kept the rider at bay but had no effect in stopping their pursuit. So Connor changed tactics and thrust the broom up into the air, where it caught an overhanging telephone wire. He yanked down hard and pulled the line loose from its fastenings. Almost jerked from his seat in the process, Connor lost the head of the broom but left the wire strung out across the road like a garrotte. The nearest biker was going too fast to avoid it. The wire wrapped itself round his throat and wrenched him off his speeding motorbike. While the rider was left dangling like a puppet from the line, his bike carried on and careered into a shop that sold copper piping, the metalwork cascading in a clattering tidal wave into the street.
‘One down!’ Connor shouted, but his triumph was short-lived as the other three bikers ducked beneath the wire, swerved round the copper piping and powered on after them.
Left with just the broom shaft, Connor jabbed fiercely at the approaching bikers as if trying to spear a frenzy of tiger sharks. As one fell back, another moved in. Then two of the motorbikes split off down different streets. Meanwhile the lead biker stayed on their tail. Zhen switched right along an alley, then cut across a road, dodging the traffic. Car horns honked and a screech of tyres resulted in a crunch of bumpers. The biker darted round the accident and shot after them into the next lane. Blessed with a clear run, he drew his gun.
‘Go for the wheels!’ gasped Amir, peering over the back seat.
Risking all, Connor threw the broom like a javelin at the motorbike. The shaft hit its target, spearing the spokes and locking out the front wheel. The bike flipped and the rider was tossed into the air. He flew head first into a restaurant, crash-landing on a table and sending bowls of noodle soup into the faces of the customers.
Connor punched a fist into the air. ‘Two down!’
Amir sat up with a grimace of pain. ‘And looks like we lost the others too.’
‘No, we haven’t!’ Zhen yelled, brakes squealing. ‘They’ve cut us off!’
Ahead, the two motorbikes had blocked the road and the lane itself was too narrow for the rickshaw to make a quick U-turn.
‘Down there,’ Connor instructed, pointing to an open gateway between two buildings.
At the last second Zhen diverted left along a pinched alleyway, the path barely wide enough for the rickshaw. Sparks flew as its metal frame scraped the walls on either side. Electric engine whining, they burst from the alley into a small gloomy courtyard. Laundry dangled like cobwebs from eaves and windows, and bedsheets hung like sails from numerous washing lines. Connor caught a glimpse of a steaming kitchen and an old woman’s startled face before he was enveloped in a blue polyester sheet and heard their guide yell, ‘HOLD ON TIGHT!’
The rickshaw came to a sudden and ignoble stop as it hit a wall. Connor and Amir were flung forward in their seats. Zhen, flipping over the handlebars, struck the brickwork and slid dazed and bloody to the concrete floor.
Shaken but unhurt, Connor fought to disentangle himself from the bedsheet as the growl of two motorbikes reverberated down the alley and echoed through the courtyard. Flinging the sheet aside, he leapt from the rickshaw. Amir clambered out after him, clutching their Go-bags.
The two Chinese bikers, one with a goatee and the other wearing a pair of aviator-style shades, dismounted and advanced on them. Goatee pulled a knife on Connor, while Aviator went for Amir with a length of steel pipe. Connor leapt away and ducked beneath a clothes-line as Goatee slashed at his face. Driven back with a flurry of thrusts, Connor retreated across the courtyard using the laundry for cover. Amir, holding up his Go-bag as a shield, blocked the first brutal swing of the pipe from Aviator. But he was still too weak from the gunshot to fight back. A second hit drove him to the ground.
Unable to help his friend, Connor dived behind a hanging bedsheet. A moment later the tip of Goatee’s knife plunged through the thin polyester material. In a matter of seconds the sheet was ripped to shreds by a series of wild slashes, then Goatee’s grinning face leered through the gaps. Behind Connor the old woman let out a cry and fled the little kitchen in which she was boiling a large pan of water.
There’s no such thing as knife defence, just knife survival. The words of his late instructor Steve res
ounding in his head, Connor knew he had to disarm the man at all costs. He grabbed a towel from a nearby clothes-line and flicked the end into his attacker’s eyes. There was a stinging thwack and Goatee cried out in pain. His attacker temporarily blinded, Connor wrapped the towel around the man’s forearm. Then, with a disabling kick to the knee, Connor yanked Goatee forward and thrust the man’s hand holding the knife into the boiling water. Goatee screamed in agony. As the man’s hand turned red as a lobster, Connor struck him in the side of the neck, targeting his carotid artery and momentarily cutting off the blood supply to his brain. Goatee dropped like a sack of rice. Out cold, he lay sprawled on the ground, his hand still steaming.
‘I suppose that’s what you call Chinese cooking,’ Connor muttered to himself.
Then he heard a rasping cry for help from Amir. Rushing across the courtyard, he found his friend pinned to the ground, Aviator on his back, the steel pipe wedged against his throat. As Aviator choked him, Amir’s eyes bulged and his face turned a deep purple. His fingers were stretching out desperately towards his Go-bag. Connor saw what he was reaching for and grabbed the iStun from inside. Flicking up the volume switch, he thrust the two metal prongs into Aviator’s tattooed neck. The man convulsed and slumped to the floor, the pipe clanging across the concrete.
‘You … took your … time,’ Amir gasped as Connor helped his friend to his feet.
‘You should have called!’ Connor joked, handing back the iStun.
Amir managed a weak smile in response, retrieved his Go-bag and stowed the lethal smartphone inside.
By now Zhen had recovered from the crash and was staring at them in wide-eyed astonishment.
‘We can explain,’ said Connor, holding up his hands in a calming gesture. ‘I know you’re probably in shock, but first we need to get out of here –’ he indicated the two comatose bodies – ‘before these two come round.’
Fugitive Page 7
