Devil’s Road

by Gary Gibson

  They pushed Dutch into the rear of the limousine with the Englishman on one side and the Russian on the other. The limo accelerated with smooth precision, the driver visible through a smoked-glass partition. They made several fast turns that left Dutch appreciative of the driver’s obvious skill. Streetlights smeared yellow through the windows, and from time to time she heard the distinctive thump-thump of helicopter blades passing overhead in the opposite direction.

  The limousine turned onto a motorway and left the town behind, the driver navigating his way in and out of gaps between long trains of self-drive cars. Dutch upped her respect for the driver, until it occurred to her the limo must be equipped with a traffic override. Even so, he clearly had skill.

  ‘Hey,’ she shouted through the partition. ‘You ever race?’

  No answer, although the Englishman made a conspicuous point of placing his Taser on his lap.

  Dutch turned to look at him. ‘Tell me where you’re taking me,’ she said in a more reasonable tone of voice, ‘and I promise not to cut off your dick at the first opportunity.’

  The Englishman favoured her with a small, tight grin. ‘You’re welcome to try.’

  ‘How about telling me who the hell you are?’

  The Englishman turned away, staring fixedly out of the window.

  She sat back, nothing to see outside now except motorway lights and occasional road signs. Dutch tried to think about what kind of people would be willing to stage a commando raid on a prison in order to break her out, and came up blank.

  She could draw some conclusions, though. The only people who still owned manual-drive cars these days were billionaires, politicians and cops. She’d have bet serious money on the window-glass being bulletproof. The chassis and shell were most likely battleship steel, making it less a car than a streamlined tank.

  * * *

  The sky had begun to lighten by the time they turned off the motorway, driving down a narrow country lane and pulling to a halt next to an untilled field. A private jet—one of the new Chinese VTOL’s, although she couldn’t be sure since all its lights were off—sat in the centre of the field, its engines emitting a low hum.

  The driver got out and pushed a gate open before driving the limo up next to the jet. Two men in bomber jackets armed with RPK’s stood guard by a boarding ladder. The driver and the Englishman led Dutch up and inside the aircraft while the Russian stayed behind.

  Inside, Dutch saw a bar and a cluster of couches surrounding a low table. The couches were upholstered in what looked like authentic Kaiju-skin. An elderly Asian man with wisps of white hair neatly brushed against his skull and wearing a dark silk suit with a Mandarin collar sat on one of the couches, a smoothness to his cheeks suggestive of plastic surgery some time in the recent past. The barest hint of a fading gang tattoo peeked out from beneath one sleeve of his suit.

  ‘A delight to meet you at last, Miss McGuire,’ said the old man, his voice still carrying a trace of a Teijouanese accent.

  Dutch took a step towards him. ‘Wu Changxing,’ she said, grinding the words out. ‘Are you the reason I’m here, you son of a bitch?’

  ‘He’s the reason you’re out of jail,’ snapped the Englishman from behind her. ‘How about you show a little respect?’

  ‘I don’t care,’ she spat. ‘Everything I know about him shows he’s just as much of a snake as Strugatsky. Now tell me what the hell is going on!’

  The Englishman pushed her onto a couch facing Wu. He made sure she could see the Taser still in his hand.

  ‘Please get comfortable, Miss McGuire,’ said Wu. ‘I’m sorry about all the subterfuge, but we’re in something of a hurry.’

  Dutch turned to see the driver bring in the boarding ladder and close the door before sitting on another of the couches. The engines built to a steady roar and the VTOL lifted upwards, the early morning sun rotating past the windows of the jet as it turned. The whine built higher, the acceleration smooth and steady as the jet picked up speed.

  ‘Now tell me what the hell is going on,’ Dutch demanded.

  ‘I would prefer to begin with a question of my own,’ said Wu. ‘Why did you try to rob Strugatsky—hadn’t he been paying you well enough?’

  ‘None of your damn business.’

  Wu chuckled as he picked up a tablet computer from the table before him. ‘According to what I have here, Strugatsky sponsored you in the Devil’s Run back in ’51 with Jack Burton as your navigator. Eighteen hours into the race, a Spine-back sprayed poison in Mr Burton’s face and he died in agony two months later in a Tokyo hospital. Six months after that, you were the getaway driver during a raid on a Moscow branch of Strugatsky Securities that went wrong, leading to your subsequent incarceration. I don’t suppose there’s a connection between those two facts?’

  ‘Strugatsky owed me,’ said Dutch, her voice tight. ‘He owed Jack. He wanted Jack in that race, but he didn’t do a damn thing for him when he got hurt. There were clinics that could have saved him. He didn’t need to die.’

  ‘You were close to Mr Burton,’ said Wu.

  Dutch said nothing to deny it.

  This time, Wu’s smile appeared almost human. ‘How would you like to race again, Dutch? The next Devil’s Run starts three days from now.’

  Dutch stared at him. ‘That’s why you shut a whole prison down?’

  ‘I had no choice. Any other, more legal way would have taken far too long and attracted far too much attention—not to mention the Russian penal system isn’t what you’d call efficient. You’re here because no one else has taken part in the Devil’s Run as often as you have and survived.’ He leaned towards her. ‘Do this for me, Dutch, and within forty-eight hours I’ll have your records expunged. You’ll be a free woman.’

  She worked her jaw and glared at him. ‘No way did you go to this much trouble just to have me race.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Wu conceded. ‘There’s something I want you to find for me on Teijouan, before Strugatsky does.’

  ‘We’re using the Devil’s Run as a cover story,’ explained the Englishman. ‘Strugatsky has the same objective as us, and he’s already putting together a team to go in and retrieve the…items we’d like you to help us acquire. But putting you into the Run is the only way we can do that without alerting him to our plan.’

  ‘They won’t let me into the race without a navigator. Unless you can get me some kind of exception like they did for Lucifer Black.’

  Wu nodded at the Englishman. ‘Harry here will be your navigator.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what it is you’re looking for on Teijouan?’

  ‘Harry will tell you, but not until the race is underway,’ said Wu, a flinty look in his eyes. ‘If you succeed in helping us achieve our goal, we’ll pay you far more than you’d ever get from winning the race.’

  ‘The Devil’s Run isn’t a picnic,’ said Dutch. ‘I need to know more than you’re telling me.’

  Harry opened his mouth to speak, but Wu raised one hand, dark with liver-spots, to silence him. ‘You were very young during the evacuations, were you not?’ the old man asked.

  Dutch shrugged. ‘Sure. Why?’ She had a brief mental flash of her father gripping her tiny fist in his, of vast crowds of desperate refugees milling about a port while commandeered passenger ships crammed far beyond capacity steered away from shore.

  ‘I remember Teijouan as it was,’ said Wu. ‘A proud nation. One that pulled itself out of poverty by its bootstraps. Then came the Rift, and men like Strugatsky, who exploited its misfortune for profit.’

  Dutch glanced around the interior of the plane. ‘You don’t seem to have done so badly out of it yourself.’

  ‘Better me than some laowai who knows nothing of our culture or history, yes?’

  ‘If you’re trying to appeal to my sense of patriotism,’ said Dutch, ‘I grew up in New Detroit.’

  ‘Stealing cars and performing illegal modifications on others,’ said Wu. ‘Part of Teijouan’s lost g
eneration. If Strugatsky beats us, he will use what he finds merely to enrich himself.’ The old man clenched one liver-spotted hand into a fist. ‘Anything found there belongs to us. To the people of Teijouan, scattered to the winds though they may be.’

  As if, thought Dutch, the money he made from putting drivers in the Devil’s Run went anywhere but his own pockets; and he hadn’t even answered her question. But if he was serious about putting her back in the race…well, that was a different matter.

  ‘So what happens when I turn up at the starting line, three days after taking part in one of the biggest jail breaks in Russian history? Isn’t somebody going to wonder about that?’

  Wu took out a phone and held it up where she could see it. ‘One call is all that is required. By the time you walk in front of the cameras, the whole world will believe you were released the day before the jail-break occurred.’

  ‘And if I say no?’

  Wu settled back on his couch and cast a not-insignificant look towards the door of the plane before shifting his gaze back to her. ‘Then as far as the world will know, you died in the riot. But if you say yes, we’ll fly straight to Japan for the time-trials.’

  That much was clear and unambiguous. ‘Guess I don’t really have much choice but to say yes,’ she said dryly.

  All three men relaxed noticeably, and she sensed a sudden shift in the atmosphere. ‘A wise decision,’ said Wu, looking satisfied.

  Fuck you, thought Dutch, watching as Harry put his Taser away. The limo driver, who had said nothing since boarding the jet, listened and watched with evident interest. Something in his body language made her think he might be something more than a chauffeur.

  ‘If you’re supposed to be my navigator,’ she said to Harry, ‘I need to know what kind of experience you’ve got.’

  ‘Harry’s a former Captain in the SAS,’ said Wu. ‘He took part in the mass airlifts from Teijouan back when the Rift first formed. Not to mention he’s a veteran of the Second Korean War.’

  ‘I also drove in a couple of cross-continent rallies,’ Harry added with evident pride. ‘And I reached the finals in the Silk Road Rally, and the African TransContinental. I can handle myself fine on the road, Miss McGuire. You’ve got no concerns there.’

  ‘Not bad,’ said Dutch. ‘Did you ever come face to face with any Kaiju? I mean the really big, nasty ones like a Spine-back, or a Viper-tail, maybe?’

  Harry hesitated a moment. ‘I can’t say I did,’ he admitted. ‘But I don’t see why it should be any problem. I’ve made an extensive study of all the current research on Kaiju encounters.’

  Dutch sucked her lips and thought. ‘Tell you what,’ she said, leaning towards him, ‘I don’t drive with anyone until we shake on it.’

  She reached out her right hand. After a moment’s hesitation, Harry grasped it. ‘I think we’ll work together very—’

  Before he could finish, Dutch reached out with her other hand, took hold of Harry’s index finger, and twisted it in a direction it hadn’t been designed to go. She heard an audible crunch, and the Englishman’s face turned white.

  ‘Jesus!’ he howled, yanking his hand back and staring at her with murderous fury. ‘You broke my finger, you fucking bitch!’

  Dutch sat back with her hands held high before either of the other two men could react. The driver had stood, his face dark with fury and a second Taser in his hand.

  ‘Take it easy!’ she shouted. ‘I had to do it for the sake of everyone involved.’

  The driver moved towards her, but Wu reached out and stopped him with a hand on his arm.

  ‘The reason you’re not taking a walk out of this plane without a parachute,’ said Wu, his voice full of menace, ‘is because of all the time and energy it took to get you here. But if you can’t give me a good reason for what you did, you’re about to die, Miss McGuire.’

  ‘I am not going anywhere on that island with a navigator who’s got no real idea of what he’s getting into,’ Dutch snapped, hands still raised in surrender. ‘And we both know there’s a truckload of drivers out there who’ve gone face to face with Long Tall Sally and worse, and they’d still give their eyeteeth for another chance.’ She jerked her head towards Harry. ‘This asshole would get us both killed, so if you want me in the Devil’s Run, find me a navigator with actual experience of the damn thing. No way they’re going to let him navigate with a broken finger.’

  Wu’s mouth worked for several seconds before he managed to get any more words out. ‘A broken finger won’t keep him from navigating.’

  ‘He needs to be fit enough to take the wheel from me if anything happens to me,’ said Dutch. ‘It’s in the rules. The race authorities won’t even let him take part in the time-trials with a damaged hand.’

  Wu’s gaze darted towards the driver, who nodded confirmation.

  ‘Fine,’ Wu hissed between gritted teeth. ‘But do anything like that again and I’ll gladly find myself another driver.’

  ‘Christ!’ shouted Harry, his expression incredulous. ‘You’re going to let her get away with this?’

  Wu glared at him. ‘Be quiet, Mr Montrose.’

  Dutch sat back and tried hard not to show her satisfaction.

  Death Notice

  They banished her to a couch in another corner of the cabin while the three men conferred amongst themselves for the rest of the short flight. The limousine driver bandaged Harry’s broken finger, Harry staring over at her all the while with eyes full of murder. But when they touched down at a small provincial airport, Dutch found herself less than surprised when Wu informed her that the limousine driver—whose name, she learned, was Nat—would be going with her the rest of the way to Japan.

  ‘Where are we now?’ asked Dutch, standing at the top of the boarding ladder. All she could see were a few rain-streaked buildings next to a short runway.

  ‘Odessa,’ said Nat, following her down.

  She glanced back at the VTOL. The pilot had closed the door of the plane and was moving the boarding ladder out of the way. ‘What about Wu?’

  ‘He’s going somewhere else.’

  Nat kept a careful eye on Dutch as he guided her across the concrete to a cargo plane that looked like Russian military surplus, Wu Changxing International displayed on its fuselage. She heard a roar of engines, and turned in time to see the VTOL lift up, its nose tipping back before it shot towards the clouds.

  Apart from a couple of passenger seats welded to its interior walls, the cargo plane’s hold was empty. Nat picked up a shopping bag from a seat and handed it to her. She found it contained Levi’s, a white cotton T-shirt, underwear, a leather bike jacket and a pair of boots.

  ‘You shouldn’t have,’ she said dryly.

  ‘Couldn’t have you turning up at the time-trials wearing a prison uniform, now, could we?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing anyone ever wore in the Devil’s Run,’ she said, staring around the empty hold. ‘How long until we get to Japan?’

  ‘Twelve hours.’ He stepped towards the cockpit door. ‘You’d better get comfortable, because we’ll be taking off straight away. If you need me, I’ll be up front with the pilot.’

  He stepped through the door and pulled it shut, leaving her alone. Thanks a bunch, she thought. Even a fold-up cot would have been nice; it wasn’t like she’d had so much as a full night’s sleep.

  She stripped off the prison uniform, balling it up and tossing it into a corner. As soon as she put on the Levi’s and T-shirt she felt better, like she’d grown a new skin. She belted in as the plane started to move. Once they were above the clouds, she folded down the arms of the seats on either side of her and stretched out, the leather jacket balled up for a pillow.

  To her surprise, she fell into a long and dreamless sleep, and by the time she woke they were already in Japanese airspace and circling in for a landing at Narita International. She dragged herself over to a window and stared with groggy eyes down at the Shinjuku Line, a broad swathe of destruction several kil
ometres long that started from the shore before cutting diagonally through the city. It marked the path a Venomosaurus had taken before the Japanese military managed to beat it back into the sea.

  * * *

  A second manual-drive limousine waited for them outside the airport. Nat took its wheel, guiding them through Shinagawa before pulling to a stop outside a Hilton near the port. When he showed Dutch to her room, she found it had a view over the river and Tokyo’s Roppongi district.

  After five years in a cell with Yara, pretty much everything looked like impossible luxury to Dutch. She even found a second shopping bag on the bed with more clothes, and beside it, a three-ring binder thick with paper. She flipped through the pages, finding it contained specifications for a Toyota four-wheeler modified for driving in the Devil’s Run.

  She held it up where Nat could see it, then let it drop back onto the bed with a thud. ‘What the fuck is this?’

  ‘Specifications of the car you’ll be driving.’

  She regarded him with horror. ‘You cannot be serious.’

  ‘Is there a problem with it? I’ve seen other racers drive vehicles same as that one on Teijouan. They’re rock-solid and built like tanks.’

  ‘Yeah, and how many of the people who drove them survived until the end of the race?’

  Nat hesitated. ‘Well…’

  ‘Nobody ever outran a Kaiju in one of those things,’ said Dutch. ‘Speed and manoeuvrability matter a hell of a lot more than armour-plating or any of that ridiculous shit you see people putting on their race vehicles. Plus, they blow their head gaskets all the fucking time.’ She shook her head in violent disagreement. ‘If your boss thinks I’m driving one of those things, then he’s out of his skull.’

  ‘The time trials are tomorrow,’ Nat reminded her, stepping towards the door. ‘There isn’t time to find another car. And besides, we aren’t going there to win.’

  She stared at him. ‘What the hell do you mean—?’

  ‘Your job is retrieval,’ said Nat. ‘You can’t do that and have the time to win the race. It’s one or the other, Dutch.’