Jericho clung desperately to the tree trunk. His feet slipped. No bark to claw on to. Just three metres above the ground he decided to let go, pushed himself away, landed on both feet, lost his balance, fell on his back and saw the airbike plunging down on top of him.
Motorbike falls from tree and kills detective.
There were headlines that you didn’t want to imagine in print.
With all his strength he catapulted himself sideways. The airbike struck the ground beside him with such force that he was afraid the arsenal of weapons would go up, but he was spared that disaster at least. The bike lay on its side; two jets and part of the casing had come off. As a result it had ceased to function as a flying machine. He looked up, but the tree-tops obscured the view of Chen’s flat. When he staggered to the house wall he thought he saw a foot disappearing over the window ledge and narrowed his eyes.
The foot was gone.
He looked around, discovered a back door, pressed the handle and found it was open. Behind it, the corridor lay in darkness. Cool air drifted towards him. He slipped inside and took a moment to find his bearings, saw a turn in the corridor and followed its course. After a short flight of steps he found himself beside the lift-shaft. Ahead of him, the hall stretched to the front door. A series of loud thumps came from the stairwell. Someone was charging down the stairs like an elephant. Jericho jerked backwards, hid behind the lift-shaft and waited to see who would appear in the hall.
It was Daxiong. The giant staggered and rested his arm against the wall. His jacket was torn and bloodstained over his right shoulder. A few quick steps and Jericho was beside him.
‘What’s going on? Where are Yoyo and Chen?’
Daxiong spun around, fist ready to strike. Then he recognised Jericho, turned and stumbled towards the front door.
‘Outside,’ he snorted.
‘And Kenny?’
‘Outside too.’
His knees gave. Jericho grabbed him under the arms.
‘Stand up,’ he panted.
‘I’m too heavy.’
‘Nonsense. I’ve rocked bigger babies than you before. What do you mean outside?’
Daxiong clawed one of his great hands into Jericho’s shoulder and shifted his weight to him. Of course he was too heavy. Far too heavy. Almost like dragging a medium-sized dinosaur around with you. Jericho pulled the door open, and they staggered together into the sunlight.
‘I threw him out,’ wheezed Daxiong. ‘Out of the window. The bastard.’
‘I think the bastard’s crept back in again.’ Jericho quickly scanned the surroundings. A car and a bike were on the move, some way apart.
‘They must be here somewhere – there!’
Between the vehicles Yoyo waved at them from the other side of the road. She was on the saddle of one of the two motorbikes on which she and Daxiong had arrived. Beside her, Chen Hongbing shifted nervously from one foot to the other. Yoyo pointed to the second motorbike and shouted something.
‘Exactly,’ growled Daxiong. He took his hand off Jericho’s shoulder and stomped unsteadily off. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
The pagoda-like roof of the building flattened in the middle section, by the shaft of the stairwell. Xin had parked his airbike next to it when he’d gone down to the fourth floor and now he charged back into the open, gun at the ready, safety-catch released in haste, bleeding from a thousand cuts. He ran to the edge of the roof. The pagoda sloped gently below him and hid most of the street, but he could still make out the struts for the new elevated highway and the park on the other side.
He saw Yoyo and her father standing next to a footbridge.
He took aim and realised that his magazine was empty. With a howl of rage he threw the gun away, ran to his airbike, sat on it, started the engine and climbed until he had a wider view of the whole road. Jericho and Daxiong were running along it. They had crossed the central reservation and were now halfway over the bridge. The traffic surged along below them. From the air they looked like mice in a lab run. One of them was limping.
The giant. He had hit him.
Xin reached down into the weapon chamber and brought out a sub-machine-gun. Jets wailing, he plunged.
Jericho saw him coming. He grabbed Daxiong – running in front of him, bent almost double – by the sleeve of his jacket and pointed into the air.
‘Shit,’ gasped Daxiong. He raised both arms to alert the others to the bike, and groaned. His face was contorted with pain. But Yoyo had also realised the danger she was in. She jumped from her motorbike and started running as fast as she could towards the park, with Hongbing hot on her heels.
‘Daxiong,’ yelled Jericho. ‘We’ve got to get back.’
‘No!’
‘We’ll never make it.’
He gave the giant a shove and pushed him to the point where the walkway crossed the central reservation, next to one of the massive pillar constructions on which the rails of the maglev were going to run. Prongs jutted out from it at regular intervals. Jericho swung himself over the parapet and started climbing down. He hoped Daxiong would be able to summon the strength to follow him. There was no way he could carry the guy down there.
The airbike shot across the footbridge. Shots rang out loudly. Daxiong lost his grip and landed heavily in the grass of the central reservation. Jericho ran to the fallen man, who sat up and uttered a roar that easily drowned out the sound of the cars. To Jericho’s relief Daxiong wasn’t shouting with pain, but bawled a cascade of curses all of which concerned Kenny’s slow and painful demise.
‘Up with you,’ Jericho shouted at him.
‘I can’t!’
‘Yes, you can. I’m not particularly responsive to stranded whales.’
Daxiong turned his narrow gaze on him.
‘I’ll tear his stomach out,’ he shouted. ‘And his guts! First his large intestine, then the small one—’
‘As you wish. On your feet now!’
Xin came around in a circle and took aim at Yoyo.
A moment later they had disappeared under the lush foliage of the trees that surrounded the park. He brought the bike down and swept over the field towards the qigong group. Heads high, shoulders lowered, upper and lower body in harmony, the old people stretched their arms out, turned their palms and brought them slowly upwards, stretched their limbs, craned their arms until it looked as if they were keeping the sky from plummeting down on Siping Lu. He saw the fugitives appear between plane trees and weeping willows and fired, tearing gaping holes in the wood. The front members of the group fell out of sync with the rest. They forgot to clasp their fingers, missed the slow exhalation, turned their heads.
A moment later they scattered, as the airbike swept through them.
Xin slowed the bike and headed towards the little wood into which Yoyo and her father had disappeared. No sign of them. He pulled up the nose of the airbike and quickly gained height. Maybe they wanted to seize the right moment and run out on the other side, to get to their motorbikes. Jets hissing, he aimed for the two machines. Being powered by electricity, they wouldn’t explode, but after an intensive bombardment they would no longer be usable.
He saw a movement in the central reservation. Ah! Jericho and the colossus who’d tried to throw him out of the window.
So much the better.
‘Here he comes!’
Daxiong nodded feebly. They waited until the last moment, then fled between the pillars as the first shots ploughed through the grass and struck the concrete. The airbike dashed past them and then performed a quick turn.