Alicia’s raucous shout broke his concentration. “Get on with it, Drakey. This ain’t Pinewood fucking Studios!”
Dudley and his cohorts suddenly made a break for it, all moving as a unit as if it had been pre-planned. An open door beckoned, the red sign above it reading STAIRCASE.
Hayden’s voice broke through the comms. “Back left. Target’s escaping. We can’t let them get away!”
Drake recognized the fear and desperation in her voice, knowing how imperative and vital recovering a Z-box was to the world at large. Nothing could be more important. He smashed a Yakuza body aside, seeing Kinimaka do the same, and gave chase. He counted at least five Yakuza were down. Alicia and Dahl fell in alongside and then, as he looked back, it seemed the entire room was streaming after him. First came Hibiki and Yorgi and then Mai and the others, all running headlong for the staircase and chasing the madman, Dudley.
Life and death and the future of everything they held dear hung in the balance.
CHAPTER FORTY ONE
The staircase twisted acutely at first, thickly and lushly carpeted so that Drake’s Valentinos sank into the pile. Again the weirdness of the evening hit him; running on the carpet was like running on a mattress. The last Irishman—McLain—was right in front of him. Drake reached out but the staircase turned unexpectedly and he overshot. Alicia took the lead, leaping two steps at a time and clearly gathering herself to jump and land on the back of one of their fleeing enemies.
“Too risky!” Drake cried.
But too late. Alicia jumped, missed her mark, and tumbled head over heels, striking a wall with her spine and emitting a low groan.
“Fuck.”
Dahl bounded into the lead. Drake grinned as he passed the complaining Englishwoman. “Gazelle.” He pointed at himself. “Donkey.” He pointed at her.
Dahl gained on Dudley’s men as Drake took a chance and looked back up the stairwell. The sight was incredulous: dozens of battle-hardened figures chasing down riser after riser, some turning to exchange punches as they ran, others actually tussling. The massive Kinimaka ran with a Yakuza warrior gripped tightly to his chest, reminding Drake of a boy and his teddy; then Mano hurled his charge at a wall at a switchback level, shattering the image. Komodo used his combat skills to help protect Yorgi as they ran together, the soldier purposely slowing for the thief.
Ahead, Byram and McLain turned as the Irish descended yet another level, then stopped. Dahl hit one of them in mid-flight. A window smashed. Dudley quickly jumped onto a PVC frame, disappearing through. Malachi followed. Drake elbowed Byram in the face, pulling up sharp and then realizing the powerful impetus of what was coming behind him.
“Oh, shit.”
He slammed his body against the wall, flattening fast. Alicia joined him as Byram and McLain leapt desperately for the window, barely scrambling through. Dahl tried to follow but was barreled over by an unstoppable Kinimaka. Yakuza fell at his feet and rebounded from his decelerating frame. Hayden grabbed hold of him; Yorgi tumbled head over heels, Komodo right beside him.
All the while the Irish gang were escaping.
Drake grabbed hold of the window ledge, wondering what visions would greet him outside. They’d descended so many levels they couldn’t even be all that high any more. He hoisted himself up, spurred on by Alicia’s hand in the middle of his ass. Once balanced, he took stock of the scene outside. This window stood about three floors up, situated on the west side of the hotel, directly opposite a cramped row of slightly lower buildings. The rooftops were mostly in darkness but Drake quickly made out the escaping Irishmen.
“Damn it!” he yelled.
“Fucksake, Drake,” Alicia murmured, so close he started a little. “Either you’re James Bond or Jack Bauer. Make your bloody mind up.”
“You’re like a chatty little parrot, sat on its perch, y’know that?”
Alicia pouted. Drake measured the distance and drop between the window ledge and the first rooftop and then made the leap, hitting the roof hard and rolling. From there he was up, casting a quick glance in Alicia’s direction then remembering to look away for the sake of her own decency as she jumped.
His eyes found four fleeing shadows, their deep brogue audible even this far away as they cackled and bulled each other up. Drake started in hot pursuit, trusting his team to make the jump. Alicia was at his side in seconds. Together they crossed the first roof and gauged the leap to the second—only about six feet—and hurdled it together. A filthy alley passed below, dark and silent in the dead of night but not likely empty.
They landed lightly and kept running. Their quarry was two rooftops ahead. Dahl shouted to their rear and Drake whirled just in time to see the big Swede, already on the rooftop, catch a following Yakuza in mid-flight and launch him back off the edge. This seem to deter those trying to follow, allowing the SPEAR team to fight their way through.
“Eyes forward,” Alicia reminded him.
Drake, still running, turned just in time to see the next gap approaching. This one was wider, probably eight feet and a challenge. Drake sprinted hard, then jumped up and out, swinging his arms back, and then forward as he leaped. He applied every muscle in his body to the effort, focusing next on where he wanted to land. Knees up from the halfway point he straightened them aggressively, landing on the balls of his feet, then going down into a diagonal roll from one shoulder to the opposite hip.
Using the momentum from his roll he continued his sprint, Alicia but an instant behind. The Irish were just up ahead now, having taken longer to complete their leap.
Behind there came a cry. Hayden had tumbled, restricted by her dress, and Mai stopped to help, refusing to allow the Yakuza to hurt any of her friends. One of the Asian men had picked up a length of metal tubing and swung it at Mai’s head. Before it connected Komodo stepped up and plucked it out of the air, reversing it and jamming its end against the attacker’s skull. Blood flowed. Hayden was pulled up by Kinimaka and another scuffle broke out. Yorgi and Dahl caught up to Drake, both fleet of foot.
“They’ll be fine. Come on!”
Another gap in the rooftops and another eight feet to clear. Drake almost managed to grab Dudley’s jacket as he landed, his fingers brushing the material, but then stumbled and lost valuable ground.
“Yer time’s comin’, soldier boy.”
Drake gritted his teeth. They were on the final rooftop now. Behind him, Kinimaka, Smyth and Komodo ran hard as they simultaneously battled the last six remaining Yakuza warriors. The soldiers were matched blow for blow, the survivors seemingly the toughest of the gang, barely acknowledging the damage they took. Hayden ran with a slowing Mai. Drake could only imagine the pain his girlfriend must be in—the bullet wound hadn’t fully healed. Ahead, Dudley and his boys were reaching the end of the last roof.
This chase certainly couldn’t go on forever. It was coming to do-or-die time.
Drake glanced back as Yorgi gave a yell, stumbling and sprawling head-first. The Yorkshireman was surprised—he’d thought Yorgi the most likely to embrace all this running and jumping shit—but the Russian recovered fast and was soon swallowed by Hayden’s pack.
“Where are those aresholes going to go now?” Dahl panted, eyes forward.
Dudley skidded to a halt as the roof ended, then without a second’s pause simply jumped. Drake felt his breath catch, but refused to pass judgment. He’d seen a lot of strange things in this world but a vanishing act still remained on his “less likely” list. This theory was tested as all three remaining Irishmen also leaped into mid-air.
Alicia turned to Dahl. “Had to open your big mouth, didn’t ya?”
Dahl started to protest, but it was a weak effort, probably because he agreed with her. Drake slowed as he approached the edge, unsure what to expect.
He peered over the side, taking it in, mindful that their quarry might have secreted a weapons cache along their escape route earlier.
“There you go,” Alicia grunted.
Drake checked th
eir rear. The following pack were taking flight, crossing over to the last roof, battling on the way. Thinking fast, he spoke into his comms.
“Do we have time to stop and get rid of the Yakuza?” The running fight could be ended in minutes, he was sure.
“No!” came back Hayden’s instant, highly-stressed reply. “The Z-boxes are crucial to the safety of the world. Somehow, one of us has to take it away from Dudley!”
“It’d be bloody easier if—”
“No!” Hayden said again, cutting him off for what seemed like the first time ever, so abruptly he winced. “At all costs! The boxes are all that matter.”
Drake bit his lip until the blood flowed. “I don’t like this.” Below, Dudley and friends had jumped down to the top platform of a fire escape and were even now clattering down its metal skeleton. His gut told him taking five minutes to stop the Yakuza was the correct thing to do—but Hayden was their established and readily accepted boss, and the Z-boxes were apocalyptic dynamite.
“C’mon,” Alicia said by his side. “Let’s just go. Orders are orders, right?”
Drake nodded abruptly, shaking the indecision and accepting the greater good. Alicia, Dahl and then Hibiki hopped over to the fire escape. Drake followed.
Damn you, Dudley. Where’s that box?
*
Hayden approached the last gap between roofs with a sense of utter relief. The white dress she’d chosen for tonight’s occasion, as well as being totally ruined, was simply too tight. Flecks of blood and streaks of dirt stained it like exclamation marks of horror. From the pitched battle inside the hotel to the chase down the stairs to the leaps across to the rooftops, Hayden had fought gamely, taking some Yakuza out and slowing many others, saving Komodo’s life once in the process. The big soldier hadn’t needed to thank her, it was what they did for each other every single day. Karin’s constant updates filtered through her comms, warning them about hazards ahead and the status of the Hong Kong police and potential hiding places for Dudley. The English girl was clearly following their every move, knowing when they were approaching leaps.
Hayden hitched her skirt as she ran, making the last jump with an inch to spare, throwing everything in to it. One thing she knew, Mai Kitano was having a much worse time of it. The brawling, the running and hard jumping—the roll at the end—would be aggravating if not reopening her bullet wound. Not only that, she was a constant target of Hikaru and the remaining Yakuza and no matter what Hayden and the others did to deter the gangsters they always came back to zero in on Mai.
Now her dress tore down the side; not a bad thing since it helped free up her limbs a little more. Sakurai—she knew their names by now thanks to the constant shouting—sprawled beside her, the rough surface of the roof scoring his palms. Hayden kicked him in the side of the head. Sakurai rolled away and came up fighting, blocking Kinimaka’s path now and trading blows. Hayden struggled to her feet and helped Komodo tear Mai from the hands of Hikaru and Eto. Smyth bloodied their faces and then, at Hayden’s urging, they were off again, trying to stay on Drake’s heels, to keep sight of Dudley and locate that Z-box.
The edge of the roof came up fast. Hayden already knew what to expect; Drake had shouted it through the comms. She slowed and then jumped once more, arms tucked in and knees high, hitting the top of the fire escape and letting the balls of her feet take the force of the impact. The flimsy structure shuddered, not from her landing but from the amount of people already scurrying down it. Dudley’s crew were near the bottom, pulling up in surprise as they realized the steps ended ten feet off the ground. Drake, Dahl and Alicia were a minute behind them. Hayden started to descend as the fire escape swayed away from the wall, making its moorings squeal.
Bad omen, there’s some heavy artillery about to hit this thing! She was thinking about Komodo and Smyth and, in particular, Kinimaka. Mano would never forgive himself if he accidentally took an entire fire escape down.
Karin’s voice burst through the comms. “The alley below you leads across Gloucester Road and then Hung Hing Road. Then there are causeways, slipways and part of the harbor. Dudley could be trying to reach a boat.”
Drake came back instantly. “Then why the hell did he lure us out in the first place?”
“Just saying.” Karin sounded affronted.
“Possibly hoped the Yakuza would kill us off,” Hayden said as she descended. “Or—”
“Or he has a surprise waiting. Dig in, guys. This is gonna get even hairier.”
Hayden kept her eyes below and on the guardrails as Dudley made the first leap to the ground, hitting lightly and rolling. Luck was not on their side as the Irishman jumped up unhurt, drawling and shouting at his pals to move. As one the next three leaped into space, shouting at the tops of their voices and whooping it up.
All three landed undamaged.
Hayden concentrated on her descent. Above, the entire structure groaned as everyone jumped on. Komodo ran last, now guarding Mai from the Yakuza pack, and took a moment to grab a leaping gangster by the scruff of his neck just at the moment he landed.
“Morino, isn’t it?” Komodo growled. “Why don’t you people just fuck off?” And he launched the man over the side of the fire escape, waiting to give a limping Mai chance to begin her descent. The following Yakuza also waited, milling like a wolf pack waiting for their kill to weaken.
Drake’s bunch leaped off the fire escape, hitting the concrete and rolling to safety. Hayden arrived at the base next, the ten foot drop below suddenly looking much more daunting than it had on the way down.
Kinimaka puffed hard behind her. “Just go. The jump will give us a breather.”
She smiled as the frontrunners chased up the alley toward the wide road and glaringly bright lights at its end. Then she leaped, keeping her balance as she flew, concentrating on the landing. A hard impact, a roll, a few scrapes, and she was up, backing away from the spot she thought Mano might land. Above her the entire metal structure was now pulling away from the brick wall, twisting and grinding, minutes away from destruction.
Nevertheless, at the top, the Yakuza jumped on and started to descend at a senseless, reckless pace.
Hayden waited, not wanting to leave any of her team behind. Kinimaka landed like an asteroid, cracking concrete; then came Yorgi making it look easy and Smyth grumbling even in mid-flight. Only Mai and Komodo were left up there, with the Yakuza closing fast.
Mai jumped first, and Hayden saw instantly that she was in trouble. Her balance was off. Coming down hard she twisted as she landed, smashing down on her injured side, screaming. Komodo fell beside her and Hayden rushed forward to help.
Shouts of bloodlust and victory came from above.
The Yakuza fell among them.
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
Hayden fought for her life and for the lives of her family.
Five Yakuza warriors jumped down, one hitting Komodo hard, another striking Smyth a full blow in the face, the momentum added by the long drop staggering the snappish soldier, sending him to his knees. Hikaru landed close to Mai, grinning at her pain. Hayden ran to help her. Yorgi was already sprinting away from them but pulled up with a skid, quickly seeing their predicament.
Hikaru had found a heavy piece of rock, its edges jagged and hard, and now held it above the kneeling, groaning Mai. Hayden could see the blood seeping from her recent wound and how she held it, eyes shut tight in agony.
“This is how it ends for you, Mai Kitano,” Hikaru said with something like relief on his face. “You kill us, we kill you. The Yakuza will be avenged.”
Hayden put everything she had into a last lunge, a headlong dive, grabbing his waist and forcing him off his feet. Together they slid a few feet and the rock rolled away. Then Hikaru was up, quicker than her, striking down at her exposed face with lightning fast hands. A sharp kick to the ribs knocked her off balance.
And suddenly he was past her, scooping up the rock again and approaching Mai from behind. Yorgi arrived and hit out at Eto. Kinimaka st
ruggled with Tanji, the smaller man dealing out painful hits and moving faster than the big man. Smyth tried to rise, still dazed from the crushing blow.
The Yakuza’s star was rising, reaching its absolute zenith.
And the SPEAR team’s world, their family, would never be the same.
With Drake, Alicia and Dahl long gone, Hayden knew there were no miracle rescues about to happen. She made a despairing lunge for Hikaru, fingertips tapping his shoes but barely touching him. Her fleeting gaze saw Smyth go down again, battered by the powerful Sakurai who also held a weapon—a piece of sharp, copper tubing.
Mai managed to turn her face upward, features distorted in pain, the midnight-black dress falling around her like Death’s harbinger. For so long now she had been haunted by her actions.
“End it, Hikaru. Just do it.”
The Japanese woman sat in agony, her life flashing before her; all the hopes and dreams and small regrets coming back.
Finally it all made sense.
I shouldn’t be living in a world of suffering and guilt. I made my choice that day. The only people I hurt by not moving on are the very people I love.
The rock came down hard, bone-crushingly hard. Mai found her will, and at the last moment tried to move, but the reopened bullet wound sent debilitating waves of pain crashing through her.
Hayden screamed, again reaching for Hikaru’s feet.
Mai saw the rock, its huge jagged edges and unyielding surface. She saw Hikaru’s face, a mask of bloodlust and hatred and triumph. She waited to die.
Someone else came between them. A large bulky figure. The rock struck him instead, full in the face, sending him lifelessly down to the floor. Mai froze in horror. Hikaru screamed as he was thwarted once more and fell atop the fallen figure, smashing the rock again and again into the man’s skull, making sure that he was dead.
Hayden was screaming too as she scrambled up, taking Hikaru’s legs from under him. The Yakuza boss landed an inch from Mai, his face suddenly scared.
The Lost Kingdom (Matt Drake Book 10) Page 22
