“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.