“Did you drop it?” Walker asked. Seeing the grin on Yaya’s face, he said, “I remember my father once telling someone that if it didn’t work, to give it the ‘three-foot drop test.’”
“No.” Yaya wiped his face and cranked his neck. “I didn’t drop it. I’m afraid to. I have so many wires and connections, there’s no telling what would happen. I’m close now. I don’t want to step backwards.”
“So now what?”
“Now I stare at it until I figure out what the fuck is wrong with it.”
The truck slowed. Walker glanced out the window. By his estimations they’d reached the southern edge of the city of Dawei. All traffic had come to a stop. A roadblock up ahead had a dozen police and military. Their guns were drawn. They were turning everyone away. Evidently the road was closed.
“What do you think?” Walker asked Yaya.
“Doesn’t look like they’re searching for us.”
“Just keeping people from traveling south.”
He turned to Eddie, but saw that the driver’s door was open. In the rearview mirror he saw their driver scurrying back the way they’d come, and Walker slid into the driver’s seat.
“Looks like we have to go to Plan B,” he said, shifting the truck into gear and turning off the road. He’d spied a side street, which he took for about a hundred yards until he noticed something. He backed up, then stopped the truck.
“I wasn’t aware we had a plan B,” Yaya muttered.
“I wasn’t either until I saw that.” Walker pointed to a vehicle parked in a side lot. He’d seen Indiana Jones ride one and could imagine himself doing the same. “I think we’ll take that.”
“That?” Yaya shook his head. “Hell no. I’m not going to let you drive me around like some sidekick.”
“Fine then. You drive. I’ll shoot.”
Ten minutes later, after Yaya had successfully hotwired the Russian Ural motorcycle with sidecar, they were riding through a forested area at about three miles an hour. Yaya no longer needed the sling. His shoulder ached, but was otherwise fine.
Walker had his Stoner out and lying along the cowl of the sidecar. He also had two AK-47s and his pistol, as did Yaya. The rifles were crisscrossed on his back, making him look like a Rambo samurai.
They found a dragon-fruit plantation where the trees grew far apart. They used this to bypass the roadblock. After half an hour they found their way back to the road. There wasn’t a pedestrian or vehicle in sight. Yaya cranked the engine and they were soon flying down the blacktop, swerving only for the occasional man-eating pothole.
The going was great until Walker started seeing things. At first it was movements out of the corner of his left eye. They were large and fast, but when he looked they were gone. Then it was out of the corner of his other eye, too. Soon he was able to make out some very large things keeping pace with them. He could never really see what they were, but every now and then he’d glimpse something through a break in the dense jungle.
“Can we go faster?” he yelled.
He pointed to the jungle. Yaya looked, and after a moment, his eyes widened. He leaned forward and twisted the accelerator. They soon outdistanced whatever creatures were following them. Although Walker couldn’t be sure, he had an idea what they were.
They had traveled without incident for about a dozen miles when they crested a hill. Yaya slammed on the brake and they skidded to a stop.
In front of them was a qilin. This one was the size of a horse. Like the one they’d seen in the ship’s hold, it had six legs, a thick body, and the head of a prehistoric cat. Spikes jutted from its body and head as if it were a punk-rock monster.
It stood in the middle of the road about fifty yards in front of them.
Walker jerked up his sniper rifle and stared through the optics. Green liquid dripped from its multi-toothed maw. Orange fire glowed in its eyes. It breathed deeply, its scale-covered chest rising and falling.
And then it roared.
That roar was joined by others not far behind them.
They only had a matter of moments.
Yaya pulled both AKs from his back. He held one in his left hand and rested the barrel over the handlebars. The other he laid across his lap.
Walker got his AK ready as well.
“You ready?” he asked Yaya.
The SEAL revved the motorcycle engine.
“Aim for the mouth and eyes,” Walker commanded.
Yaya shoved the motorcycle forward, gathering speed dramatically.
Walker opened fire, catching the qilin in its green-dripping maw.
The creature howled, raising its head.
Walker held fire until it lowered it again, then began to fire as fast as he could pull the trigger. Beside him came the AK-47’s signature dull thunka-thunka-thunka.
The creature broke into a run straight at them, shaking its head much as a bull would as it began to charge an opponent. The SEALs and the chimera were engaged in a life-and-death game of mythological chicken.
Walker found that when the creature was running at them, he had a better aiming point. Somewhere in the back of his mind he was reminded that it also meant that he’d soon be within chomping range, but he ignored that and kept firing. He depleted his twenty-round magazine and racked another.
The qilin stumbled, then lost its balance and fell over.
Yaya swerved around it and cheered. “Take that, you motherfucker!”
But as Walker turned to look over his shoulder, he saw it get up and begin lumbering after them. He waited to see how far it could follow them, but it showed no sign of slowing down. Finally he took careful aim and blew one of its eyes out. It fell to the ground, skidding to a stop on its shoulder.
He turned around. “Now you can breathe easy,” he said. Then his words faded as he saw another qilin waiting for them much in the same manner as the first.
“Aw hell.” He thought for a split second and made a decision. “Stop the motorcycle.”
Yaya did, the violence of his stop throwing both of them forward.
Walker climbed out and kneeled behind the sidecar. He used it to balance the rifle.
“Shoot it!” Yaya yelled.
Yaya kept the engine running, but picked up the last AK-47 and sent a couple of bursts toward the creature. It began to trot toward them.
Walker took careful aim at its eyes. Although the mouth was a larger target, he’d seen what one shot to the eye could do. He fired and missed by an inch, the bullet clanging off the creature’s scaled armor. He fired again, this one making the creature turn its head.
He was aware that with each miss the creature was getting closer and closer. It was only thirty yards away now.
Walker fired another round, then another, but it was as if the creature could see the bullet coming and moved its head at the very last moment.
“Walker!” Yaya cried.
He decided to aim to the right of his aiming point. He only had time for one last shot. He lined it up, then fired. Instead of seeing if it hit, he threw himself out of the way. Yaya gunned the motorcycle and almost made it, but the creature plowed into it, sending it tumbling.
Walker ran to the beast, shoved the barrel into a bleary orange eye, and pulled the trigger, careful of the flailing claw-tipped legs.
The creature jerked, then shuddered and died.
Good thing, because his rifle was out of ammunition.
Walker spun toward the wreck of the motorcycle. Yaya had been thrown clear. Walker had almost reached his friend when he heard a low roar coming from behind him. A qilin leaped toward him. Walker threw himself to the ground and rolled, wondering what he was going to use to defend himself. But instead of attacking, the qilin snatched Yaya by the leg and quickly limped into the jungle. It was the first one they’d encountered. He’d thought it was dead, but …