“Follow me,” she said. “Follow me or die.”
Chapter 2
It was a good twenty-five-foot drop from the broken bathroom window to the trash strewn roof below. But it was survivable. Michael knew because the woman had already jumped. So he jumped. Off the window ledge. And down. Michael didn’t know how long he was airborne, probably just over a second, but the landing was as he had expected, jarring but manageable. He landed on his feet, hitting the refuse pile just as the woman shook herself free of it.
The trash was maybe two feet deep and damp. It had obviously rained recently. Michael had no idea why Chungking’s residents chose to dispose of their refuse as though the Middle Ages were alive and well, but he didn’t care. Not right now anyway. Besides, it was mostly packaging and fast-food wrappers; the odor emitted not so much fetid as sweet, creating the illusion that whatever he was trudging through was no worse than a freshly fertilized field. A long-tailed rat scurried through the trash in front of him and Michael made every effort to turn his mind to pleasanter thoughts than the plague.
Michael was six-three and weighed in at about a hundred ninety pounds, but even with his lean strength, trekking through the deep trash was no cake walk. He picked his way after the woman carefully, thankful for the heavy-duty trail running shoes he wore. Then, as the woman stopped abruptly at the far wall, he followed her gaze down. Between the masonry wall of the adjoining building and the roof he stood upon was a fourteen-inch crack extending at least twelve stories down. A drain pipe threaded down the crack to what Michael could just make out as the alley below.
“Tell me you’re kidding.”
The woman simply eyed the bathroom window. There were voices up there. Movement. Then a beam of light swept the roof.
“Get down.”
Michael ducked under a wet cardboard box, but he wasn’t quick enough. The flashlight beam hit his back and a shrill scream rang out in Cantonese. The woman didn’t bother waiting. Michael looked up to see that she had already disappeared into the crack between the buildings. Then, without further warning, the report of a pistol cracked through the night air. Michael rolled toward the roof’s edge. Though he was loathe to do so, he saw little choice but to descend. Pulling the backpack from his back, he tossed it between the buildings. The pack was too wide at first, but with a good shove he was able to get it to fall. The beam of light bounced back and forth across the roof. There were more shots now, but they were scattered. Obviously the shooters didn’t have a bead on him yet, but Michael didn’t want to stick around until they did. He pulled his lanky frame up and over, grasping the cast iron drainpipe as he slipped his body into the crack. A natural athleticism had always been a part of Michael’s life, but the bullets were something he hadn’t experienced in a long time. They added an element of urgency to the proceedings he could happily do without.
The drainpipe was wet, water overflowing from the gutter above. He had heard his backpack hit the ground, the four or five seconds it had taken it only emphasizing the length of the descent ahead of him. He could no longer hear the shouting above, but now, as Michael crept down the crack foot by foot, gray water streaming down the walls, he felt like a river was closing in around him. Michael had an issue with tight spaces. He didn’t like the label claustrophobic, but it didn’t make it any less true. Nine years ago now, Michael had endured an experience that had changed him. That event still haunted him and even though he knew rationally speaking that the walls on either side of him were fourteen inches apart and barring any unexpected earth movement, they would stay that way, it didn’t matter. What would happen if the walls narrowed to the point that he would no longer be able to move down? Working against gravity, he’d no longer be able to climb up either. He would be stuck there, caught between two slabs of wet concrete twelve stories high, and the feeling chilled him to the bone.
But Michael also knew that he had to get to the bottom before the men with guns. Add to that, the woman was nowhere to be seen. He had to assume she had made it to the street below. It couldn’t be far now. So, taking hold of the drainpipe with both hands, he retired the downward stepping motion he had been using and simply hung in the crack, lowering himself down the drainpipe hand over hand. It was quicker this way. Much quicker. And just when Michael began to fall into a rhythm he felt the world open up around him. The rear wall of the crack fell away and Michael found himself in a covered alley. He slid down the last few feet of the drainpipe landing next to the woman who stood immobile, the noise of the street audible from the end of the alley.
But it wasn’t over yet. Because the woman didn’t stir. Didn’t even flinch. And when Michael followed her gaze to the end of the passageway he saw why. They had been quick, but not quick enough. Somehow Zebra, sporting a nasty gash above his left eye, had gotten down before them. Michael suspected he had found a fire escape, but it didn’t much matter now. He was there. And he had put away the butterfly knife in favor of an automatic weapon.
Michael knew his way around a gun. Not just because he was a red-blooded American, but because his father had taught him how to shoot and more importantly how to respect firearms. It was something he had always been thankful for, regardless of what side of the debate was popular amongst the company he found himself in. Right now, though, the debate had gone from the academic to the visceral. He was facing down what looked like a machine pistol, probably a fully automatic TEC-9 capable of spraying lead from one side of the alley to the other. It wasn’t a terribly accurate weapon, but it was vicious, and Michael knew that it packed enough of a punch to leave both him and the woman dead before they hit the ground.
Michael considered their options. Running was always a good one, but with a brick wall behind them it meant sprinting headlong into a spray of bullets. The other choice was to fight. Fight or flight, he thought. It always came down to one or the other. Except on those odd occasions when another predator entered the fray.
A set of powerful xenon headlights lit up the alley. They were closely followed by the low growl of a big block engine as a vehicle bore down on Zebra from behind. Michael and the woman took to either side of the alley wall, but strangely Zebra didn’t flinch. He simply glanced back at the speeding car as if he expected it, as if he were counting on it. He then turned his attention forward and fired the gun.
Michael could tell by the muzzle flash that the shots went high. Way high, because what Zebra obviously hadn’t anticipated was the fact that the vehicle would run him squarely over. The car, now clearly visible as a black Mercedes S-Class sedan hit him with such force that Michael was sure he heard the crack of bones. Zebra rolled up over the front bumper and down the right fender, taking the hood ornament along with him for good measure. Then a strange thing happened. The car didn’t lurch forward or away, it didn’t spin its tires, or rev its engine menacingly. It simply crawled ahead, giving them ample berth, the rear passenger window rolling a smooth three inches down. There was a silence before a cracked voice spoke from the darkness within.
“You owe me a favor, Mr. Chase.”
Michael peered through the gap in the glass, but could make out no more than the shadowy outline of an old man.