The Forbidden City

by John McNally

  DAY FOUR 10:27 (Local GMT+8). Rail Bridge, nr Shanghai.

  Eight minutes until arrival.

  A warm drizzle greyed the outskirts of Shanghai.

  The Tyros waited.

  The humidity made Baptiste’s scalp itch. He’d had to shave off his beard and hack off most of his hair to change his appearance, but now the dirt of the city was mingling with the dirt of him. It felt good. The high-speed rail line merged with the local network where he stood, so that the rails ran eight abreast, a number that doubled as they headed up the line towards Shanghai South.

  Spike and Scar had been taken aside when they’d flown in overnight. Baptiste had tortured them, personally.

  They knew they would be punished for poor performance and their screams were duly relayed to the Tyro seminary in the Carpathian Mountains. Classes stopped and the students were led into the Old Hall to watch the live relays from London, Zurich, Valpariso, Baikonur … The routine was always the same. Errant Tyros in the field had their heads shaved and were subjected to tortuous pain. The watching prelates would long for them to die as it meant new Tyros would be initiated and their own time in the world would draw closer.

  Baptiste had spared the lives of Spike and Scar. He needed every pair of hands he could get, though they had lost their grins for good, their fractured jaws hanging open.

  They waited.

  Seven minutes to go.

  Carla was marched back to the cabin they’d stolen the night before. Some passengers turned away in disapproval. Tomas looked hurt, his sister angry.

  Finn wisely said nothing.

  The attendant demanded her full name and nationality. Thinking of his own daughter, he was firm, but tried not to frighten her. She asked him to call the American Embassy immediately as she was “in an emergency situation”.

  “Oh, I will call the authorities,” he assured her.

  He went outside to make the call, snapping away in harsh Mandarin at first, then becoming incredulous as the response came back.

  DAY FOUR 10:33 (Local GMT+8). Roof of the World, Shanghai.

  The meeting had been out of control for some time, it had lost focus amidst demands for details Al and the team couldn’t possibly supply.

  “The bottom line is – there is no data …”

  “Science fiction is not a sound basis on which to …”

  “Industrial espionage goes on all the time, we can’t go destroying …”

  They were repeating themselves, King thought. Al’s call to destroy the Forbidden City had been too radical. It frightened the politicians, smacked of hysteria not science, and it exploded the credibility of the nano-bot analysis that had come before it.

  A limited shutdown of the Forbidden City and an evacuation of non-essential personnel to a quarantine zone for a mile around the city walls had been agreed to and was slowly getting underway, but without adequate government explanation the authorities were concerned panic would spread. Now they were debating the merits of calling it a “health threat” or a “terrorist threat”.

  Al fought to keep his temper and his voice steady.

  “This is an existential threat to information technology as we know it! To mankind as we know it! Just get those people moving!”

  In the cacophony Kelly yelled up at Al, “They’ll be jabbering all day. Why don’t I get Stubbs down there in a Skimmer and we’ll re-rig the nano-radar so it picks these things up? Then at least we’ll have evidence.”

  “Do it,” said Al, without hesitation.

  “Wait – I’ll come too,” said Delta, desperate to take some kind of action.

  They ran across the table to scramble the two Skimmers. Almost unnoticed, Kelly and Stubbs strapped themselves into one while Delta jumped into the other.

  Across the room Bo Zhang was interrupted by a call on an emergency line.

  He picked up. “Yes?”

  He had to yell to make himself heard. “We have your sister! We have the girl!”

  Delta, rising into the air, shot the Skimmer straight across the room towards him.

  DAY FOUR 10:34 (Local GMT+8). Hong Kong-Shanghai Sleeper Express.

  The attendant looked down at Carla in something approaching awe.

  “What did they say?” she asked him.

  Without saying anything, the attendant smiled, took the small dragon-head lucky charm out of his pocket, put it in her hand and closed her fingers around it.

  “I must protect you like my own.”

  Then he gave a short respectful bow.

  “I think,” said Finn, “we may be in lu—”

  BOOOOOOOOOM!

  A satsuma-sized lump of plastic explosive cut the main overhead power cable.

  The sudden loss of power and the sight of a dangling, sparking 25,000-volt cable caused the driver to hammer the emergency brakes – SCREEEEECHHHHH!

  “GO GO GO!” yelled Baptiste.

  Carriages shuddered, wheels sparked and five Tyros ran to attack the train like jackals.

  The stretch of track was bordered by apartment and office blocks designed with no trackside windows, and rail management CCTV was simultaneously disabled by a Li-Jun cyber-attack, so the attack would go unseen.

  Each of the Tyros wore a State Police Assault Squad uniform, a gas mask and wielded Glock 9mm pistols and pepper spray. They hit the train and hauled open doors, searching and firing as they went. Passengers started to scream in panic and fear.

  Carla and the attendant had been thrown against the cabin wall as soon as the brakes bit.

  “They’re coming!” Finn said.

  “Stay here!” said the attendant, heading out and locking Carla in.

  “We’ve got to get out!” Finn yelled. “Smash the glass!”

  Carla looked at the bullet-hard, inch-thick window …

  The police uniform Baptiste wore was no consolation to the passengers. The way he carried himself was aggression itself and the mask just added faceless terror. He kicked open doors, scrutinising female faces – searching for Carla – firing into the floor to stoke their screams – BANG!

  He was through Car 4 in seconds.

  In Car 3 he struck Tomas with the butt of his gun for raising his phone and his family wailed.

  Kicking his way past more cowering passengers, Baptiste entered Car 2. Cabin 1 was empty. The door to Cabin 2 was locked. He kicked.

  WHAM!

  Inside, the whole cabin shuddered. Carla spun around. She had detached a fold-out table from the wall and was wielding it like an axe.

  “Hit it!” screamed Finn from her hair, firing up the Bug.

  Carla swung the table with all her might over her shoulder – SMACK! – against the glass. Nothing.

  WHAM! The cabin door burst in. The masked, steel-eyed Baptiste yelled, “CONTACT! CAR TWO!”

  He instantly saw a white dot on his nano-tracker. “DRAKE!”

  The other Tyros rushed through the train towards Baptiste. Closing fast.

  So did the attendant. Outraged, he barked a curse in Mandarin at Baptiste, who yelled, “POLICE!”

  “LIE!” the attendant yelled back, snatching off Baptiste’s mask.

  For a fraction of a second both were shocked. Baptiste by the attendant’s audacity; the attendant by Baptiste’s baldness and youth. Baptiste was already bringing his gun round.

  Carla screamed, “NO!” and threw the table at Baptiste as the attendant reflexively grabbed at his gun.

  BANG! The bullet shattered the window. Carla leapt and shouldered the shattered glass, bursting out on to the tracks.

  BANG BANG! Baptiste shot the attendant twicefn1 and leapt through the window on to the tracks right behind her. Four years older, twice her size. He grabbed her black mop of hair. Finn thrust free in the Bug and got Baptiste in his sights.

  DRDTRTRTRTRRTTRTRTRTRT! – tiny bullets smacked into the soft tissue beneath his left eye. Baptiste reeled and released. Carla shot forward, but two slack-jawed shaven wretches were blocking her escape.

  Spike an
d Scar.

  Spinning round in desperation, she saw that two more Tyros were nearly upon her. She needed a miracle.

  HOOOOOOOONK!

  She got a service unit: a single giant loco packed with maintenance equipment, braking like crazy as it came round the curve and ran into the scene. Carla leapt up and grabbed the cab steps as it passed on the next track, pulling herself up before the Tyros could reach her feet, climbing past the roaring driver and reaching the roof of the great diesel beast as it slowed.

  A Tyro scrambled after her.

  Baptiste screamed at the others to get around to the other side.

  Finn, above it all in the Bug, could see there was no one on the far side of the express. He swooped down and shouted to Carla, hoping she could hear him, “JUMP ACROSS – they’re all this side!”

  She ran along the roof of the still-moving loco and leapt – THUMP – landing dead centre on the roof of the static express train on the next track. Rolling over, she gripped the trim rail on the roof and dropped down on the far side of the train.

  The Tyros were clambering up on to the roof of the train and scrambling underneath carriages to get after her.

  Carla ran. Finn flew.

  There was a gap between two grey concrete buildings at the far side of the tracks. A low bridging wall ran between them, a road running beneath it. The closer Carla got to it, the less she knew what to do.

  Finn wheeled again and fired – DRTRTRTRRTRT! – but Baptiste ducked and took the bullets on his forehead, barely losing momentum.

  Carla vaulted the concrete wall, twisting as she did so – hoping to run along the top and find a way down, attract attention, anything – but Baptiste caught her trailing leg, tripping her and sending her over the top.

  Carla shot her arms out to catch and cling … and found herself hanging off the very edge of the bridge, suspended above two lanes of traffic and a rock-hard road five metres below.

  Baptiste smiled. He pointed his gun at her fingers, clinging to the edge of the wall. He couldn’t see Drake but he knew he was there.

  “GIVE UP NOW, DRAKE! OR SHE DIE!” Baptiste threatened in a thick Bulgarian accent.

  Finn orbited in the Bug. He could see Carla slipping. The other Tyros closing in.

  He dropped to Baptiste’s eye line and burned the Bug’s lights to grab his attention.

  Even Baptiste was stilled by the sight of a 9mm boy hovering right in front of him. Carla slipped further. The traffic grunted by beneath.

  “YOU’VE GOT ME! SAVE HER!” yelled Finn.

  Carla looked down. Beneath her, the red roof of a lorry slid by – the drop to it barely two metres. Oh boy was her heart pounding. Oh boy was she scared.

  “Go, Finn!”

  She let herself fall.

  WHAM!

  She hit the roof of the lorry slap in the middle and bounced off the canvas, only just managing to grab the edge of it before she rolled off the side.

  “Arrrrgh!” she heard behind her, followed by a sickening thud and the screech of brakes – a Tyro must have followed her and missed.

  Baptiste stared after her, talking rapidly into mid-air.

  “Articulated lorry registration HG2737MM container ad for 3M Logistic solutions …”

  “Got that,” said Li Jun at her screens, swinging into action.

  She was hooked into the transport company servers before he’d even finished his sentence.

  “They have tracking on every container – can you see the container number?”

  “777363GNG!”

  Al ran towards the chopper on the Siam Towers helipad, Bo Zhang right behind him, Delta surging ahead in the Skimmer, flying straight in.

  Once inside the aircraft they were almost immediately airborne, tilting south at top speed in the direction of the overnight express. Confused reports were coming in to Bo Zhang. The train had been involved in some kind of police ambush.

  “An ambush? Your men?” said Delta.

  “That I doubt,” said Bo. “A young foreign female ran from the train. She was pursued. I’m afraid there are reports of a severely injured casualty on the road below.”

  Delta’s heart seemed to stop beating. Bo instinctively held out his hand and she dropped the Skimmer despondently into it. She couldn’t cope if Carla died, she wouldn’t want to. Bo could see tears in her tiny eyes.

  “This is my fault …” Al said as they closed in on the scene – the stranded train, the flashing lights of the emergency services on the roadway beneath. “This is my fault …” he said again, though it clearly wasn’t.

  “Shut up!” barked Delta. “Please, please let her be alive …” she begged Bo. He had no way of responding to her, or of connecting to either of them. But he felt for them.

  Then something came through on the radio.

  “Teenager. Deceased –” Bo waited for more – “Male.”

  Delta let out a cry of relief that shook her bones.

  “Check his eyes!” Al said.

  The driver of the lorry, registration HG2737MM, was singing along to Faye Wong on the radio, oblivious to events on the roof. Only when he broke hard at traffic lights did a young Western girl suddenly thump down over his windscreen, grab the huge wipers and scramble monkey-like down the lorry’s face. He gaped in disbelief.

  Carla dropped into the road and ran across three lanes of honking traffic until she made it to the safety of a side street. An old local woman squawked in disapproval at her.

  By the time she stopped running and emerged on to a main shopping street, she was panting hard, only just beginning to process what she’d done. Finn dropped out of the sky. “A Metro! Look!”

  On the corner of the next block was a large M symbol above a station entrance, obvious among the mass of Chinese signs. Carla hurried towards it, pushing through crowds curious at seeing a young Western girl running so hard, past electronics emporiums, supermarkets full of foods she’d never eaten, past ginkgo trees.

  At the steps of the Xinzhuang Metro she looked back. She could see no pursuers and headed down.

  They found a map on the concourse wall in English and traced the coloured lines.

  “The Forbidden City!” said Finn. There it was, right at the end of a yellow line.

  Carla pointed straight into the heart of the city.

  “West Nanjing Road – the US Consulate!”

  “Which way?” they asked in unison.

  DAY FOUR 11:07 (Local GMT+8). Song Island, Taiwan (disputed).

  In the elevated chamber, on a live CCTV feed direct from the Xinzhuang Metro, Grandma watched Carla board a northbound train. An armchair had been brought up and she had been invited for brunch and ‘to watch the fun’.

  “How far behind are they?” Kaparis asked.

  “Two minutes – they will make the next train on Line One,” reported Li Jun, just as two of the Tyros ran into shot. More CCTV feeds showed stations further up the line.

  “Can we get anyone into central Shanghai to head her off?”

  “We’re on the bikes!” came the reply from Baptiste.

  “I want your assurance this girl will not be harmed,” insisted Grandma.

  Kaparis didn’t even hear her. He was nailed to task, fanatically concentrated, eyes flicking from screen to screen. In the thrall of bloodlust.

  Grandma had seen it before on high security wards.

  “She’s changing trains at East Nanjing,” said Li Jun.

  Kaparis watched Carla move through the station. Heywood dabbed at his lips with a moist cloth.

  “She’s heading for Line Four,” said Li Jun.

  “Come on, Carla!” Grandma chanted.

  Kaparis’s eye shot round on the optics to bore into her.

  “What did you say?”

  “I’m supporting the girl,” Grandma explained, “you’re supporting your minions. It’s only fair. Car-la! Car-la!” she chanted, holding an imaginary scarf above her head.

  Li Jun looked across at her in terror.

  �
�Stop immediately or I will feed you to the sharks!” shouted Kaparis.

  Grandma stopped … and gave him one of her looks. “I think it’s best I go back to my cell,” she said.

  “I think that very unsporting.”

  “I think threatening people with sharks is unsporting.”

  Kaparis sighed heavily. Was he really going to have to apologise for a second time? Now?

  Happily they were interrupted.

  “There’s a G&T operation underway in response to the train hijack. Dispersal of personnel from the Siam Towers,” said Li Jun.

  “Detail,” snapped Kaparis.

  DAY FOUR 11:38 (Local GMT+8). Central Shanghai.

  Carla entered the Westgate Mall from the West Nanjing Road.

  The atrium was gigantic, with tiers of balconies that rose for eight floors and the whole place packed with shoppers eager to catch a glimpse of whoever was about to appear on a stage set up at one end.

  On a map at an info stand Carla read: ‘US Consulate – Level 8’.

  She looked round and blanched at the sight of Spike and Scar entering the mall – scanning the crowd. They’d spot her immediately. She ploughed through the crush towards a helter-skelter stack of escalators.

  She failed to see Baptiste. He watched her, then headed for the elevators.

  When she reached the first escalator, Carla dared a look back across the sea of people. Scar and Spike were just a dozen metres away, heading straight for her. She ran up the moving stairs to Level 1 and continued to climb rapidly. She didn’t look back, she couldn’t. She put everything into bounding up the metal steps, Level 3, Level 4 – towards 8, towards America, and Delta – Level 5, Level 6 … her lungs bursting. Level 7 loomed at the top of the next flight.

  As did Baptiste.

  Below, the superstar chef of Chinese TV stepped out on to the stage and the crowd went bananas.

  Carla’s was just another scream.

  In the middle of a packed shopping mall in the most populous country on earth not a single person saw the hands that grabbed her, nor the spray that dulled her senses, nor her collapse.

  A quick scan revealed nano-material in her jacket pocket.