by Andrew Lane
Without thinking, Gecko rushed forward towards the pillar. Almost immediately he realized that it was too wide to climb, so he diverted sideways towards one of the statues.
Behind him he heard Natalie shout, ‘No, Gecko, this is a temple! People are worshipping!’ but it was too late. He was committed.
A priest grabbed at his shirt as he ran past, but he tore himself free and speeded up.
The statue was a tarnished bronze colour, about twice his size. It seemed to be a representation of a muscular warrior, clad in a sheet wrapped round his waist. His face was grimacing and his ears were stretched out to unusual proportions, the lobes dangling down to his shoulders. Some kind of strange ribbon wound round his neck and shoulders, and floated free around his body. The great thing about it as far as Gecko was concerned was that there were various projections that he could use to climb up – bent knees, outstretched hands, the ribbon . . . He leaped for the statue, and scrambled upward with as much grace as he could muster under the circumstances. From behind him he could hear shouts of dismay from the priests and worshippers, and gabbled apologies from Natalie.
Standing on the statue’s head, his own head was in the layer of smoke that hung from the ceiling like gauzy curtains, shifting back and forth with the breeze. He could see the underneath of the roof, dimly, two metres or so above his head. It was supported by horizontal wooden rafters and braced by smaller diagonal ones. He jumped for one of the rafters. His hands caught the rough wood and he pulled himself up until he was crouching on top of it. He glanced around rapidly, feeling the sweat running down his sides and back. His hands burned, partly with the effort of pulling himself up and partly because of the giant centipede’s poison.
Somewhere up here the creature was either running, hiding or preparing to attack.
The coiling smoke made it difficult to judge distances. As it moved it revealed momentary glimpses of distant rafters, beams, parts of the roof, the tops of other statues and the stone floor below. For a second he saw Natalie, surrounded by gesticulating priests, and then the smoke covered the scene up again and revealed a crowd of worshippers all heading for the temple steps.
He tried to quell his beating heart and rasping breath, listening out for the scritch of claw on wood, or the hiss of a scared and angry arthropod.
Something crimson flashed towards him from his left side. Something with pincers held wide.
CHAPTER sixteen
Rhino came round within seconds, cheek pressed against the gritty concrete. He didn’t move – just listening in case he could pick up anything from whoever had hit him. It didn’t do any good.
‘He’s still conscious,’ a familiar voice said. ‘You’d have to hit old Rhino a lot harder than that to knock him out. Get him to his feet – I want to have a word with him.’
Hands clamped on his shoulders and pulled him up into a standing position. He opened his eyes.
Craig Roxton was standing in front of him.
The man’s long blond hair was brushed backwards, and his face was as pale as Rhino remembered. His blue eyes were as cold as chips of agate. He was wearing chinos and a polo shirt beneath a light cotton jacket. The heat didn’t seem to be bothering him at all.
The two men standing on either side of Rhino were dressed similarly, but they were bigger than him. Despite the size difference it was clear, however, that Roxton was the leader.
‘Mark Gillis – my word, it’s been an age since we last saw each other.’
‘Not long enough,’ Rhino said quietly. His thoughts were racing. Apart from Roxton’s meeting with Gillian Livingstone, the one Rhino had glimpsed at Waterloo station, his former colleague’s last known whereabouts were in Georgia, working for Nemor Incorporated. He was a mercenary, a trained Special Forces man who was prepared to hire himself out to anyone if the money was right. Calum had told Rhino that Nemor was sending a small team to Hong Kong – Roxton must be the man in charge.
‘Still working in hostage rescue?’ Roxton asked. ‘Not much money in that. More to be made in the actual taking of hostages, I think.’
‘Still working for some big, anonymous corporation, taking orders from men in suits?’ Rhino riposted. ‘I wouldn’t have thought that was your idea of a perfect career path.’
Roxton smiled. ‘Ah, I see that the young girl – Natalie, was it? – has been talking. Yes, I work for Nemor Incorporated, but believe me, Rhino, they are so much more than just another big American corporation.’ He paused. ‘I could arrange a job interview, if you like?’
‘Or I could give you the names of some charities you could donate some time to,’ Rhino countered. ‘Greenpeace, maybe, or the World Wildlife Fund . . .’
‘Funny.’
Rhino was about to say something else when a fourth man, dressed the same anonymous way as Roxton and the other two, appeared from behind Rhino.
‘There’s a tracking app on his mobile phone,’ he said in a grating voice that sounded as if he’d been hit in the throat once too often. ‘I think he’s got a location for the creature. Looks as if it’s not too far away.’
Roxton nodded decisively. ‘Good. Bring the phone – we’ll use it.’
‘What about this bloke?’ one of the men holding Rhino asked.
‘Kill him,’ Roxton said. ‘Do it quietly, and out of the way. Don’t be seen, and leave the body underneath a pile of rubbish.’ He grimaced. ‘There’s certainly enough of it around.’ He glanced at Rhino, then looked away, dismissing Rhino from his thoughts completely.
Rhino opened his mouth to shout for help – not that there was any around, but it would get people looking in his direction. Before he could make a noise, one of the men holding him punched him in the stomach again. He folded up, pain exploding through him like a supernova. He nearly retched.
The two men dragged him off. Through a red haze, he saw Roxton and the man who had his mobile phone walking away, not looking back.
The two men pulled him towards one of the large pillars that studded this level. It was thick enough to shield them from the marketplace. They released Rhino, and he fell to his knees, still feeling as weak as a kitten.
‘You want to do it, or shall I?’ one of the men said.
‘Whose turn is it?’ the other one asked.
The first man shrugged. ‘I’ve lost track. Tell you what – I’ll take this one; you take the next.’ He unclipped something from his belt and flicked his hand. A spring-loaded knife flashed into view, blade gleaming in the meagre light. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said reassuringly. ‘I’ve done this loads of times. There won’t be any pain – apart from the obvious.’
‘There’s something you forgot to do,’ Rhino said quietly, reaching to a small leather holster attached to his belt behind his back.
‘What was that?’ the man asked, stepping closer. Rhino felt the comforting rubber grip in his hand.
‘Search me.’ Rhino sprang to his feet and lashed out with the weapon he had retrieved. The impetus of his swing extended the weapon from a short tube to a long club made of hollow telescopic sections of steel and terminating in a solid steel ball. It was called an ASP, and it could break bones.
Which is what it did.
Rhino caught the first man in his chest. The man crumpled, gasping in agony as several ribs cracked under the impact of the metal. He still had his knife in his hand, and he scythed it round, desperately trying to catch Rhino, but Rhino brought his ASP up and then down again on the man’s forearm. It snapped, bending in a highly unlikely fashion. The man screamed once; then passed out.
Rhino stepped forward towards the second man, snarling. The man was reaching behind his back. Rhino thought for a moment that he might have a gun, so he stepped closer, ASP raised up ready, but the man brought his hand sweeping back low and fast. Rhino heard another mechanical clicking noise, but before he could react the man’s own telescopic baton caught him just below his waist. Only the thick fabric of his chinos protected him from serious damage, but the impact of the weighted
steel on the point of his hip sent spikes of sickening pain arcing through his body like lightning. He tried to take a step back, but his leg was numb and he fell, rolling away on the gritty concrete as best he could.
The second man stepped closer, raising his baton over his head so that he could bring it crashing down on Rhino’s skull.
Rhino kicked out with both feet, catching the man on his shins. His legs shot backwards and he fell forward, arms outstretched to brace himself. Rhino rolled out of the way and sprang to his feet. By the time he had turned round, his assailant was also upright, and facing Rhino, baton extended like a sword.
‘Let’s dance,’ he said, and lunged forward, the heavy steel ball at the end of the baton heading straight for Rhino’s throat.
Rhino blocked the lunge with a parry of his own. The impact of the two metal batons clashing sent shockwaves up his arm, numbing it.
The man stepped backwards. He considered for a moment, and then came at Rhino with a flurry of blows from left, right and above. It was all Rhino could do to keep blocking them as he took small steps backwards, but each strike got closer and closer to his head. It was only a matter of moments before his skull was fractured and the fight was over.
He had to do something, and he had to do it fast.
Still blocking with his right hand, holding the extended ASP, Rhino jerked his left hand forward, thumb extended. He pulled his head back, away from the other man’s ASP, and used his right leg to push himself forward, inside the man’s guard. His thumb, aimed precisely, hit the man’s right eye. The man jerked backwards, bringing his hands up to cover his face. Rhino brought his baton down, catching the man’s own baton close to the rubber grip. The man dropped the baton, nerves temporarily paralysed by the impact. The baton clattered on the floor.
The man cursed, and reached towards his belt with his left hand. He had a knife there, like his companion, and Rhino realized with sudden shock that the man was ambidextrous. He could fight equally with both hands!
Rhino had to finish this.
He aimed a backhand stroke at the man’s head, hoping to knock him unconscious, but the man’s right hand moved quicker than Rhino could see, catching the steel ball on the end of the baton and holding it still with amazing strength. His muscles bulged with the effort of overcoming the swing of the weapon, and he snarled.
‘Weren’t expecting that, were you?’ he said tightly. He jerked his knife towards Rhino’s stomach.
Rhino pressed a small button in the base of the baton’s grip. The battery inside sent a huge pulse of electricity through the steel ball on the end. Rhino heard a sudden crackle. The man’s eyes went wide, and his hand clenched even tighter on the ball. A small curl of smoke escaped from his fingers. He toppled forward slowly, like a tree, and Rhino had to step out of the way and pull the baton from the man’s grip so that he could hit the ground face first.
‘How about that?’ he muttered. He took his finger off the button and pushed the ASP against his leg, folding it back up. Thank the lord for unauthorized modifications . . .
High up in the Chinese temple, the centipede’s pincers snicked together a few inches from Gecko’s eyes. Liquid dripped from them and towards the floor. Knowing what he did about centipedes, Gecko was sure it was poisonous.
The centipede turned its head towards him. Its black eyes stared at him. He saw nothing but pain and death in them. He could smell something sharp and acidic that made his eyes water and his nose sting.
Time seemed to slow down. Gecko became fascinated, and repelled, by the complexity of the centipede’s mouthparts. The pincers curved into sharp, black points, but behind them and around them were other, smaller pincers, and thick hairs, and things that he couldn’t even name, all of them waving and moving in a strange choreography around the central wet hole of the thing’s gullet.
He knew this was it. He was crouched in the space between the rafter and the roof. The centipede was in front of him, and there was nothing behind him but bracing beams and empty space. His only option was to jump, but it was a long way down to the stone floor, and he didn’t think he would survive the fall.
Still, it was better than ending up with that obscene, incredible, complicated mouth fastening itself on his face.
He was just about to push himself off the rafter and jump down when something from below caught the centipede beneath its head segment. The creature’s mouthparts spasmed as the thing – whatever it was – went straight through the exoskeleton and into the soft innards. Gecko heard a crack and then a squish. The centipede jerked, pincers gaping wide while all the way down its body its legs spread wide, claws groping at empty air. The ammonia-like smell intensified to the point where Gecko felt sick.
The giant centipede seemed to float away from Gecko. He watched it go with amazed eyes, but then the smoke momentarily cleared and he realized that the thing he’d seen coming up from beneath was a wooden pole. Its sharp end had been the thing that went through the creature’s head segment.
He followed the line of the pole downward, to where Natalie was holding it like a long spear. A yellow silk banner lay by her feet. It was one of the banners from the steps outside.
She let the pole drop. The end she was holding hit the ground, and the rest of it pivoted, carrying the twitching centipede to the ground where the pole clattered and the creature splattered like a fly on a car windscreen.
‘That was . . . good work,’ Gecko called down in a voice that contained too much sheer panic for his liking. ‘How did you do that?’
‘Lots of cheerleader practice,’ she shouted up. ‘Banners, flags, pom-poms – you name it!’ Despite her bantering tone, her face was white. ‘Are you coming down, or are you going to stay up there all day?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. He felt as if his muscles were locked in place. ‘Is it dead?’
Natalie glanced over to where the giant centipede had landed and burst sickeningly. Some of the priests and the worshippers were in the process of covering it up with the yellow silk banner.
‘I really hope so,’ she said, with feeling. ‘If it’s not, then I don’t see what else we can do, apart from get hold of a rocket-launcher.’
‘I’m sure Rhino could do that, if he felt it was necessary,’ Gecko said, beginning the climb down.
Rhino raced through the market stalls, desperately trying to work out where Roxton and his friend had gone. He couldn’t let them get to the giant centipede first. They might actually capture it, which in a sense would solve Rhino’s immediate problem, but Nemor would then get the DNA, and Rhino had no idea whether or not Natalie and Gecko had retrieved any DNA from their own target creature. The people of Hong Kong would be safe, but Calum Challenger’s aim would have been thwarted. More likely was the possibility that Roxton and his friend would scare away the creature, and it would go to ground somewhere. That way it would be free to wreak havoc whenever it came out for food. And what if it was pregnant? Rhino had no idea about centipede biology – how did they reproduce? – but he knew he couldn’t take the risk. He had to be the one who got to the giant centipede first.
He ran in the direction in which he’d seen Roxton heading, past the edges of the jade market and out into a less crowded surrounding market of stalls selling food, silk, mobile phones and fireworks. He was feeling lightheaded after the fight, and he was limping after that blow to the hip, but he had to keep moving. He had to.
Up ahead he saw blond hair. There weren’t many blond Chinese, so it was highly likely to be either Roxton or his friend. He increased his speed.
Outside the final ring of stalls, in the shadows of the area beneath the blocks, he came upon a macabre sight. The scarlet and blue creature was halfway up one of the pillars, claws digging in hard to the concrete, head turned round to face Roxton and his companion, who were approaching it carefully. Roxton had a long rod with a grip on the end. Presumably he intended to catch the creature in the grip. His companion had a sack, which looked pitifully small compared with
the size of the centipede.
The creature obviously had no intention of being captured. Its head spun round to face Roxton’s sidekick, and it seemed to spit a stream of venom across the distance between them. The man jerked backwards, hands clamped to his eyes, screaming.
Roxton looked down at him dismissively then took a silenced pistol from inside his jacket and shot him. He scooped up the sack and approached the creature again, long-handled grip extended.
Rhino’s first impulse was to let Roxton find out just how dangerous this thing was, but he feared that once the creature had incapacitated or killed Roxton it would vanish. There was a hole at the top of the pillar, and if the creature got up there it would be impossible to find.
Rhino looked around desperately.
Market stalls. Jade. Food. Silk. Nothing he could use.
Except . . .
He turned and rushed back past a stall where the holder was cooking soup in a tureen over an open flame and to the stall he’d seen selling fireworks. The Chinese had invented fireworks, and loved to use them on all occasions. Rhino grabbed a handful of rockets in cardboard tubes. The stall-holder tried to catch hold of his arm, but Rhino pushed him away. He bent down and scooped the cold end of a piece of burning wood from beneath the tureen as he ran past the food stall.
Up ahead of him, Roxton was facing the creature, and looking scared.
Rhino dumped all the rockets on the ground apart from one. He held the wooden stick by the end and aimed it at the creature. He quickly inspected the firework. There was a hole in the tube, about halfway down, through which he could see the fuse. He lit the fuse with the burning wood, pointing the tube towards the giant centipede as it reared up and prepared to attack Roxton.
Holding lit fireworks is dangerous. Holding lit fireworks is stupid. He knew people had blown fingers and even whole hands off doing this, but he couldn’t think of anything else to do. He had to kill that creature. Because he – or, rather, one of the kids he was meant to be looking after – had been responsible for releasing it.