“The other side of the mirror.”
Dahl grabbed the Irishman, glancing apologetically toward Drake. “Slipped away for a moment.”
Drake couldn’t help but laugh. “Don’t let it happen again.”
As he closed in on Dudley and the rest of the Irish gang started to falter, the other free-for-all swept closer. A Yakuza collapsed in front of Dudley, receiving a heavy swat for his trouble. Kinimaka stumbled over a broken chair, neck suddenly exposed. Drake swooped down to help, blocking a Yakuza strike and helping the Hawaiian up in just a few seconds.
“Mahalo.”
Drake found the Yakuza tussle spreading among them. Dudley drifted away. A gravel-faced Asian aimed multiple hits at his face and chest, grunting with the effort. Drake blocked them all, then kicked out, but his expensive black shoe was deflected. Standing back, he straightened his jacket and cleared his throat. A man dived in from the right but Drake, unruffled, looped an arm around his neck and twisted. The man fell. Drake unfastened his tie, used its knot to whip another Yakuza hard in the face, striking his eyeball. He glanced down, nonchalantly straightening his cuffs.
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.