Quinn could hardly believe it. August Bowen had come all the way to Japan to find him. The thought of a deputy U.S. Marshal always getting his man sounded all well and good — until you happened to be that man.
A near miss with two uniformed high school girls on bicycles pushed thoughts of manhunters and felony arrest out of Quinn’s mind. There was nothing he could do about it now. This woman had shot Kim and tried to kill his little girl. She would not get away again.
Bitter cold wind whipped at Quinn’s face as he dipped in and out of traffic. Blocky buildings rose up on either side of the street, making it seem as though they were riding through a canyon of concrete and glass. White lines, metal poles, and slippery steel manhole covers flew by in a deadly blur. Both he and Ayako had dropped their helmets when the chase began. She rode with her body tucked in tight against his back, pressed against his leather jacket. Leaning forward over the handlebars of the bike, Quinn had no such protection.
There was always the chance that he’d spill, and offer up his brains to the asphalt gods — but the main problem with riding at such speeds with no helmet or goggles was the inability to see. An amazing amount of debris floated in the city air. Bits of trash, flecks of dust, gravel thrown up by passing trucks — all scoured his face like a sandblaster, putting grit in his teeth and threatening to blind him. Squinting through it, he took the Blackbird to its limits. He waited to shift until the tach touched redline, and let off the gas only when absolutely necessary to keep from crashing the bike or running off the road.
Hayabusa was the Japanese word for peregrine falcon. Capable of speeds over two hundred miles an hour, one of this sleek raptor’s favorite meals happened to be blackbirds. Suzuki had purpose-built the Hayabusa to chase down and eat Honda’s sport bike. There was no question that the Busa was a faster motorcycle. But city streets didn’t give the woman space to really open it up, and Quinn stayed tucked in behind her as if tied on with a cable, rarely falling back more than fifty meters.
A bright red concrete truck changed lanes without warning. The woman was able to steer out of it, leaning the Busa into a knee-dragging turn worthy of any racetrack as she followed the curve of Sumiyoshi Street through its arc in front of the main train station.
“She’s running toward the docks!” Ayako yelled in Quinn’s ear as he took the Blackbird into the same turn. Quinn gave her thigh a pat with his clutch hand, a warning to hang on as he leaned into the same corner. The fiberglass fairing groaned, scraping against the asphalt, but he rolled on speed smoothly, popping back up on the straightaway.
Ignoring every red light, the Hayabusa shot through the intersections as if she didn’t care if she lived or died. Quinn stayed close, but slowed enough to keep from being eaten by any oncoming trucks. Thankfully, most of the lights were green and in their favor.
The Busa took a hard left where the road T’d in front of the sweeping white architecture of the Fukuoka Sun Palace Hotel. The woman missed her lane, shooting again into oncoming traffic. So far, she’d not looked back once. If she knew Quinn was gaining on her, now less than fifteen meters behind, it did not change the way she rode.
Ayako squeezed so tightly Quinn thought she might crack one of his remaining good ribs.
Almost close enough to reach out and touch now, the silver Busa cut right. The red metal girders of the Hakata Port Tower rose up in the distance.
“There is nowhere else to go,” Ayako whispered in his ear. “She is trapped.” The words were torn away by speed and wind, but Quinn heard them — and they sounded a little sad.
“Get the pistol ready,” he yelled over his shoulder.
“I am sorry, Quinn-san,” Ayako yelled. “I must have dropped it when we sped away so quickly.”
Quinn clenched his jaw. He’d been chasing an armed assassin for the last five minutes with little more than good intentions. A new plan began to take shape in his mind.
“I am truly sorry,” she yelled again, wanting to be sure he heard her over the wind and engine noise. “I do not know what happened—”
“Can’t be helped,” Quinn said as the end of the road loomed in front of them. “Be ready to hand me the sword.”
CHAPTER 64
Though plenty fast, Detective Hase’s Nissan Skyline was no match for two of the fastest street motorcycles in the world. It wasn’t long before the bikes were nearly out of sight.
Bowen was astonished at the detective’s unflappable nature. He kept his hands on the wheel at ten and two o’clock, even during a pursuit, weaving in and out of traffic so hard the deputy had to brace himself to keep from falling over on top of him during the slide-over-baby turns.
Several times in the middle of a sharp corner, Bowen was certain they were both about to be killed by an oncoming truck or bus, only to remember at the last minute that Japanese people drove on the left side of the road.
Hase’s unmarked car had lights in the dash and the rear window. The siren blared, but few drivers recognized it as a police vehicle.
Police chatter in unintelligible Japanese poured out of the radio. Bowen hung on to the side handle with one hand while he banged on the dash with the other, urging him around a goggled old man in flip-flops putting down the middle of the road on a smoking scooter.
The ring of a phone over the radio speaker interrupted the chatter and the deputy’s rant.
Hase moved his hands long enough to tap the hands-free button on his steering wheel, then moved them back to ten and two, machinelike.
“Hase desu,” he answered with an abrupt grunt. His head swiveled right, then left before crossing an intersection choked with cars, piled in a hopelessly tangled wreck from avoiding the fleeing motorcycles.
“Hmm… Hmmm… Ehhh…” Hase said, in between what sounded to Bowen to be long strings of clicky, garbled nonsense.
Hase tapped the wheel again and ended the call. Eyes on the road, he translated for Bowen. The corners of his normally pensive mouth turned up in a tight smile.
“There is a police helicopter ahead. It looks like your fugitive will not be a fugitive for long. They are heading for the docks beside Hakata Tower. They have nowhere else to go.”
CHAPTER 65
Abus full of Korean tourists pulled out of the ferry terminal parking lot and directly into the Hayabusa’s path as the woman shot past the red steel latticework of the Hakata Port Tower. Fresh from the trip across the sea, the Koreans pressed animated faces against the window as the woman horsed the big bike to the right in an attempt to avoid a collision.
They were too close and the streets were too wet.
Rather than slam into the side of the bus, the woman laid down the bike, throwing herself into a low-side skid so that it slid in front of her. Metal groaned and ground against pavement, sending up a shower of sparks. The bus driver slammed on his brakes, throwing the faces in the windows forward in their seats. The woman skidded on her back, body tense to keep from tumbling until she bled off speed. Like Quinn, she’d dropped her helmet before the chase began, so she kept her neck up to protect her head.
Flat on her back, the woman was able to slide directly under the bus as her bike struck a tire and jumped through the air, slamming into the fender with a horrific, shattering crunch.
Quinn watched her pistol fall and saw it spinning like a top on the sidewalk. The slide was locked to the rear, empty. It would do him little good, but at least she wouldn’t have it to reload.