“Crap, you don’t have to grab hold of my actual ribs, y’know.”
Her mouth was alongside his ear. “What would you like me to grab hold of?”
“Balls!” Drake cried as they blasted out of the alley, crossed a road and missed a passing car by mere inches.
“If you insist.” Alicia reached lower.
“Stop that! I should know better, but it’s good to see you all. I didn’t think you were gonna make it.”
Affirmations filtered through the comms. Drake flung the bike down as they exited the next alley, traveling along a narrow road garlanded with colorful signage for a hundred meters before flinging them up yet another unlit backstreet.
Alicia had gotten her breath back, the incredible deadly lobby battle already a memory. “Hope you know where you’re going, Drakey.”
He tapped the side of his head. “All up ‘ere, love. No PDA required.”
She shook her head. “Not sure I like the sound of that.”
“Well, you can always jump the hell off.”
He slowed at the end of the backstreet, making sure the following three bikes were keeping up and then listening for followers. Already, a cacophony of engines was beginning to rise in the distance.
“They will never give up,” Mai said prophetically. “Never.”
Alicia felt sorry for the Sprite and her sister, the only two identities that the Yakuza knew without question. “Our problem for now,” she said. “Is that they only need one person to spot us. Then the entire group will follow.”
“Don’t stop movin’,” Dahl said.
“All right S-Club.” Drake opened the throttle and aimed for the white lines on the center of the road. Alicia heard the Swede’s comment over the comms.
“What’s that supposed to mean? Is that more northern slang?”
“An old pop group,” Yorgi, his partner, said. “From the nineties, I think.”
Alicia allowed her mind to relax as they pushed between rows of shops, restaurants and apartments, threading the city of Kobe and heading southeast. With no imminent threats she began to consider what would happen once they escaped Japan.
Put Mai and Chika in hiding? Will their presence with the SPEAR team increase its risk? Would the Yakuza ever stop hunting for them?
Shit, so many questions it hurt her brain. Instead, she switched to easier contemplations. Like what would she do next—rejoining Team Gold for a while and resuming treasure hunting with Crouch and co sounded like a fun diversion, but it couldn’t last forever. Still, it filled her immediate future and that was enough. Maybe it would make SPEAR see what they were missing. Maybe it would even make Drake—
A shout from Dahl interrupted her reverie. “Whoa, Drake, what’s that?”
“The Akashi Kaikyō suspension bridge,” Drake replied evenly. “The longest in the world.”
“And we’re what? Heading for it?”
“Unless you have quick access to a couple of speedboats or a sub then yes. We’re heading for it.”
Alicia surveyed the white suspension bridge that spanned the Akashi Strait, its hundreds of taut white cables glaringly illuminated by the night lights, its two crisscrossed support towers rising almost a thousand feet like white behemoths out of the rolling waters below. The comparatively thin plane of concrete stretched impossibly long across the bay, an emaciated but beautiful escape route.
Drake squeezed even more power out of the Ducati, lowering his head behind the front screen. Alicia was forced to stretch out atop him, still gripping his midriff tightly with both hands. The Kenritsu Maiko Park passed in a blur to their left and then they were on the final approach to the bridge, the toll road. Drake saw the lowered barriers and the line of manned ticket booths and couldn’t afford to take any chances. Slipping out his small automatic he blasted the barrier apart, chunks of plastic-coated timber bursting to left and right. Mai’s black Honda squirmed alongside and then Dahl’s roared close to his back tire. Hibiki raced to the other side, quite at home atop the motorcycle. Alicia knew from Drake’s movements that he was less than happy atop the crotch rocket, as was Torsten Dahl—the big Swede looking a little ungainly—but the bikes spoke for themselves as the best means of escape. Twisting slightly, she looked back now that the road was elevated a little, checking for signs of pursuit. At first she saw nothing back there but mostly darkened buildings outlined by brightly lit streets and even more colorful landmark skyscrapers—her spirits started to soar—but then the true size of their pursuit became progressively apparent.
“Oh, shit,” she said. “Oh wow, that can’t be good.”
Drake spurred the bike on. “Helicopters?”
“Nah, don’t be daft. They have a plane.”
“A fucking plane? Are you kidding?”
Alicia clamped her fingers together.
“Ow, I guess that’s a ‘no’ then. What kind of a plane?”
“Shit, how the hell do I know? It’s stripy and it has wings.”
“Actually it is seaplane.” Yorgi was twisting around behind Dahl. “Two pontoons where wheels should be.”
The four bikes came to a halt at the start of the bridge. Pursuing vehicles were probably five minutes distant, which gave them some leeway, but the plane was a bad sign. Drake passed his automatic to Alicia.
“I know you guys probably don’t have a whole lot of ammo left, but hand it to your passengers and let ‘em try to take that plane down.”
A car passed them going the opposite way, its passenger gawping, but it was the only one at this solitary hour. The entire span of the bridge lay before them. Drake blipped the Ducati’s throttle.
“Ready to race?”
Without waiting for an answer he burst forward, front wheel temporarily leaving the ground. By now the sound of the approaching plane could be heard as the four bikes attacked the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge. Alicia cursed out loud, finding it hard to get her head around a situation where she couldn’t physically stop an enemy from pursuing her. The white plane came over the bridge, able to fly over its length until the first row of suspension cables started climbing toward the top of the first pylon, sinking as low as it dared.
Alicia steadied an elbow on Drake’s spine, much to his annoyance, and let loose a salvo from the back of the bike. Yorgi did the same from his position. The seaplane shot sideways as if it had been electrocuted, zipping out of easy range. A single bullet breached its hull, its ragged entry standing out like a single forlorn wrinkle on the hide of an elephant.
The bikes ate up the bridge, passing cameras and callboxes, running alongside the barrier that separated the three-lane highway from its sister. The plane buzzed them again, but not as low as before, its occupants no doubt irate, and then pulled up as the first pylon approached. Alicia glanced both ways across the vast strait, seeing a huge expanse of heaving blackness, scattered with pitiful lights. Far out to the west lightning struck the seas, a vertical flashing white bolt, crackling along its length, then vanished into the night, the afterimage strong across her retinas.
“Damn that plane,” Alicia said. “It’s just going to follow us. What’s the escape strategy, Drake?”
“I have speedboats waiting in a quiet marina on Awaji Island.” He nodded at the body of land they were speeding toward. “Not far.”
“Does that plan factor in the presence of a seaplane?” Dahl asked.
“No, mate, it doesn’t.”
“Well, maybe next time—”
“Stop bickering you two!” Grace suddenly blurted out. “We need a new plan!”
Alicia grinned in the dark. The new girl was showing more and more promise as she overcame her affliction. Perhaps the Sprite hadn’t been wrong after all to draw her into the fold.
“Actually,” Drake sniffed. “I do have a backup to plan C.”
“Isn’t that just plan D?” she wondered.
“No, just grab my sack.” Before she could comment he added, “And be careful. It’s loaded.”
Alicia couldn’t he
lp but wonder about the Yorkshireman’s wording as she felt her way around his rucksack. “Hello, something’s pleased to see me. What the hell’s this? A rocket . . . where’s the rest of it?”
“Yorgi has the launcher in his pack. Couldn’t fit it all in mine.”
“Where did you get it?”
“From the friggin’ Yakuza. Where else? I had to take half a dozen of the little bastards out to crash that truck y’know.”
“Oh, diddums. Slow down.”
Drake was already slowing and pulling alongside Dahl. The Swede fixed him with a suspicious stare. “Yeah?”
Drake shook his head, knowing the Swede would be keeping up through the comms system, then swerved his bike so that his left knee was almost touching Dahl’s right. Both bikes steadied. Above, the first pylon shot past, white and enormous against the vault of the night, standing starkly beautiful in its unending battle against the seas of Mother Earth. Alicia reached over and took the launcher from the fumbling fingers of a nervous Yorgi, berating him over the comms.
“So you can climb up the outside of a building without fear, but put a few hundred CCs between your legs and you’re suddenly all aquiver? I thought you were better than that, Yogi.”
The Russian remained silent, clearly unsure what to say. Drake gunned the Ducati so that it spurted ahead. “Time to gain us some ground.” He pulled away quickly from the other bikes, staying low, the gray concrete and white lines flashing beneath their tires, the engine screaming. Alicia stayed upright, tugged by unnatural forces, but fighting against them as she loaded the RPG.
“Only one shot,” Drake said.
Alicia snorted. “Yeah, I figured that unless you got another rocket down the front of your pants.”
“You’re not having that one.” Laughing, Drake coaxed more speed out of the Ducati, his sudden increase in velocity leaving the seaplane behind. When Alicia tapped his shoulder, indicating she was ready, he applied the brakes and spun the bike.
Facing their oncoming friends, Alicia raised the RPG and took aim.
She also saw the lights of pursuing vehicles: motorbikes, fast cars and jeeps, they spread out across the entire bridge behind them.
A bloody mobile army, she thought, then sighted in the seaplane.
“Sayonara, you son of a whore.”
The plane was slow to react, but then probably hadn’t expected an RPG being fired at it from the back of a motorbike. It dipped fast, severely, a bomb suddenly falling out of the skies. The maneuver was so quick Alicia found that she had to readjust.
“Pricks. Just stay still so I can shoot you.”
But the seaplane’s pilot had other ideas, dipping beneath the topmost horizontal cable suspended between towers so that it was now running in between the dozens of thick vertical lines that supported the roadway.
Alicia’s mouth turned down in concentration as she tried to sight on the plane between cables. “Ya think that’s gonna stop me, asshole? Not a chance.”
Alicia depressed the firing button. The missile streaked away trailing smoke, shooting between the rows of support wires and straight toward the seaplane. What her aim lacked, the heat-seeking sensor made up for, arcing the warhead until it locked onto the aircraft’s welcoming signature and, even though the plane dipped at the last minute in an evasive attempt, the missile struck true and detonated.
The seaplane exploded, wreckage curving away from the main body and down into the black seas. Alicia dumped the now useless weapon as Drake revved the Ducati again and aimed its front end for the far side of the bridge.
Engines roared at his back and the other three bikes flew past. But as he prepared to make his tires scream in pursuit still more engines announced their presence as they continued to give chase.
“Still coming,” Drake said over the comms. “We’re not out of this yet.”
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
The remainder of the night unfolded at a more reasonable pace as Drake and his teammates shot onto Awaji Island, cutting between high concrete reinforcements and then keeping the expanding sea view to their left. Their pursuers tried in vain to keep up, but Drake had chosen wisely with the four bikes. He half expected another seaplane to appear, or at least a chopper, but the Yakuza must not have been able to rustle anything up.
Probably all out moving their friggin’ contraband . . . among other things.
He recognized the hotel to his left from pictures and peeled through the entrance, switching his lights off and coasting down a sharp, twisting incline toward a long, wooden dock.
Two speedboats sat tied up, bobbing gently in the undulating swell.
Drake ditched the bike, taking care to conceal it before hurrying over to a waiting figure.
“Cheers for doing this.”
“No thanks required, man, so long as I get paid.”
“This guy’s our banker.” Drake pointed at Dahl. “Or something like that.”
The figure pulled a hood back to reveal young features set within a pockmarked, scarred face. He didn’t reveal his hands. “Don’t care how many of you there are. Pay up now or I start killing.”
Drake coughed in surprise. “Okay, pal, calm down, calm down.” He dug into his jacket, still sweating inside his mask and trying to adjust to life at less than one hundred and twenty miles per hour.
Mai squeezed past him. “Nice friend you got there.”
Drake paid and ensured they were all secure before casting his eyes back along what he could see of the highway. “Better without your running lights,” he told the youth. “At least for now.”
“I know how to smuggle,” came the reply. “You still aiming for HK?”
“Yep.”
“Cool. Get in.”
Drake noticed the only space left was one between Hibiki, Mai and Chika. Unconsciously, he winced. Outwardly, he gave the others an aggrieved stare. This was all he needed. What he actually wanted was to hold Mai, to share his relief and sheer pleasure at saving her life, but this sure as hell wasn’t the time. Not even close. Gingerly, he picked his way aboard the speedboat and took a pew next to Hibiki.
The boat powered up, stealthy at first, nudging out of the cover of the dock and over the rolling waves. The horizon opened up ahead, black and empty, and a sea breeze ruffled their clothing. Slowly, both speedboats ventured further out.
Drake gripped Hibiki’s shoulder. “Great job back there, pal. You guys really owned that lobby for a while.”
“I’m just happy everyone made it out alive,” Hibiki said, staring between Chika and Mai. “How’s the gunshot wound?”
Mai glared over. “Hurts like a bitch. How’s the face?”
Hibiki blinked, not understanding. “Okay, thanks. I didn’t—”
Mai leaned over and slapped him hard. “How about now?”
“Shit!” Drake couldn’t help himself. “We came here for you. Everyone’s here for you. Even bloody Alicia.”
“Don’t tempt me,” Mai snapped at him. “You brought Grace.”
“She wanted to come.” Drake knew the words were lame before he uttered them but his mouth ran away with itself. “To be fair the plan was that she stay back at the hotel.”
Mai shook her head, saying nothing and staring at the dark horizon. Chika chose that moment to smile at Hibiki, the gesture achingly sad through all the blood, cuts and bruises that covered her face.
Drake stared the other way as Hibiki and Chika embraced, whispering their gratitude and love for each other, alone now in the full boat. His eyes locked onto those of Alicia, who stared over at him.
Even the sprightly Englishwoman looked sad.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
Drake relaxed for the first time in many hours as the team finally sprawled out around the safe house that a collaboration of Interpol and CIA agents had procured for them. Here in Hong Kong every agency in the world was active, and the SPEAR team hadn’t been willing to trust the local police, despite having concealed their identities. In truth, the safe house was a littl
e drafty and noisy, since it was in actuality a converted warehouse and not exactly Victoria Peak. The team took it in their stride, but Drake could tell nobody was particularly comfortable with their surrounds. He trusted Argento at Interpol and he trusted his team’s abilities to be wary of their perimeter. For now, Honk Kong was far enough away from Japan and safe enough to hide in whilst others tried to collect Intel from the Yakuza HQ.
He tried to take their mind off it by jabbing the speakerphone open and calling Hayden in Washington. Now that they had Mai back they could all concentrate on and be useful in solving this lost kingdom problem; maybe even in apprehending Dudley and his cohorts. And it would keep Mai from tearing his and Hibiki’s heads off.
Hopefully.
But first they needed to know where Hayden was at.
Their boss answered on the fourth ring. “Hey guys, how’s it going?”
Drake gave her the summarized version, leaving out the lobby scene, the subsequent chase, and Mai’s exasperation.
But Hayden’s voice was still hesitant as she asked, “And how’s Mai?”
Drake glanced over at her but she lay lengthwise on the only sofa, tending her own wound with Grace kneeling beside her and pulling faces. “Good. Good. She’ll heal.” He didn’t have to add: I hope.
“You’re safe there in Hong Kong?”
“Safe and sound.” It came out “seyf and sooond” with his Yorkshire drawl.
The American pushed on, “You’ve missed one hell of a lot, guys, but I’ll try to keep it brief. The lost kingdom of Mu, a kind of precursor to Atlantis and the human race, is almost certainly real and submerged at the bottom of the sea between China and Taiwan.”
Dahl raised his voice immediately. “How can you be so sure?”
“Well, we aren’t but the Pythians seem to think it’s real and that’s what really matters. Castle walls have been found down there, other fortifications with perfect, genuine mortar joints, ancient structures and the Yonaguni Monument, stone circles—you name it. Real evidence exists, circumstantial or not. The find raises numerous problems, the potential worst of which is the location of the damn place.”
The Lost Kingdom (Matt Drake Book 10) Page 16
