The Black Dragon

by Julian Sedgwick

Except now they’re not riding horizontally around the caged walls of a fairground thrill—but hurtling toward thugs with guns who want to stop them dead in their tracks.

  “Showtime,” Zamora shouts. Danny grips for all he’s worth as the acceleration throws him back on the Harley’s seat. The major flicks the bike left, deliberately veering toward the corner of a boat ramp. They strike it with a bone-jarring jolt—and then they’re airborne. It feels effortless. The wind rushing through Danny’s hair, whooshing in his ears, the bike’s engine revving high. He glances to the left, and there—for the briefest of moments, but in perfect detail—sees a huge golden Buddha spotlit in the deep recesses of the temple. Time stops. Eyes half closed, the Buddha sits in the lotus position, one hand reaching out to touch the altar on which he sits. The image is gone in a second, but it sears itself onto Danny’s retina. Perfect stillness against the fury of their escape. He closes his eyes and tucks his head behind Zamora’s back—the after-image of the golden figure still glowing in his vision. Gunshots crackle around them—and Zamora lets loose his old whoop, the one that he used to enter the Wall of Death ride.

  The triad men duck as the motorbike carves the air in a perfect arc. Its back wheel clips the buggy’s hood and then—with a wobble—Zamora’s landed it and is forcing it away down the seafront road.

  “Bit rusty,” he shouts. “But you can’t really forget these things.”

  Glancing over his shoulder, Danny can see three men jumping into their cart, gunning the thing into life. Heading their way. The police lights flashing behind.

  But where’s Sing Sing? She seems to have vanished into thin air. Maybe the Buddha will look out for her.

  The sense of serenity still holds him, even as two more gunshots ring out across the growl of their Harley.

  28

  HOW TO IMPROVISE ON A BORROWED BIKE

  One of Danny’s earliest memories is of leaning over the railing of the Wall of Death watching a younger Zamora fly around its vertical caged walls. The white crash helmet with its big red Z drawing circles in the gloom as the major practiced deep into the evening. It all came to an end one evening with a front-wheel blowout that sent Zamora flying and left him in traction for weeks. He never got on the bike again in earnest after that, other than to potter round the encampment. And it’s been almost eight years since. Just have to trust that these things stick in the body memory, Danny thinks.

  He throws another quick look over his shoulder, hoping for a glimpse of Sing Sing. Wouldn’t put it past her to see her slim form silhouetted and crouched on the temple roof. But there’s not a sign.

  And instead he sees the buggy closing the gap on them. Its angry snarl audible over the motorbike’s rumble, the men on board it bent low and hanging on for dear life as it bounds along in pursuit.

  Danny taps Zamora on the shoulder.

  “Company.”

  “So, they want a chase? Well, we can easily outrun them on this baby. Oh boy!”

  The major accelerates along the bay road. His wing mirror shows the two round eyes of the buggy falling further behind.

  “Told you.”

  But it’s hard to keep up the speed. The narrow road is cluttered with pedestrians, bicycles, other trishaws. Zamora has to brake and weave. A café has run its tables out almost completely across the path and he has to slow right down to negotiate the obstacle.

  “Sorry! Coming through.” He accelerates again.

  The buggy is closing fast again; it shows much less concern for the customers in the café. Horn blaring, it mounts the tiny pavement, clips a plastic chair and sends it cartwheeling onto the beach.

  “All under control,” Zamora bellows. “We’ll lose them on a clear straight.”

  But then, looking up, they see the road ahead is well and truly blocked again. Four more tough-looking gangsters stand in line across the road, weapons drawn. Red and white roadwork barriers have been dragged across the road, and a mini-digger parked sideways beyond that. One of the men is holding up both his hands, ordering them to stop.

  Can’t turn around, can’t go on, Danny thinks. They’ll shoot first, ask questions later. If they bother to ask questions at all. So—give ourselves up? And then what? Let Laura suffer on her own? Or will we be rotting in some cell with her?

  Zamora’s looking left and right. On the landward side of the path is a wide, spiraling staircase leading up between the houses. Its concrete wall is pocked and chipped, white railings curling away into the gloom—but the angle might be just right. And riding the surface of the wall should be much faster than the stairs and the risk of blowout. Probably safer really. Definitely better than trying to run the roadblock.

  “No hay problema, Mister Danny,” Zamora barks, as much to reassure himself as Danny. One man at the roadblock has drawn a pistol and is advancing toward them, leveling it at them.

  Zamora screws his eyes tight, wringing every ounce of speed from the Harley. He just needs to reach the spiral walkway first. It’s a matter of hitting the dropped curb at just the right angle to hop the bike up over the first step. And then hope for the best. Hope for the magic to come flooding back!

  The buggy is zipping up the gap behind them. Danny can almost feel the bead that the passengers are taking on his back with their guns. He looks ahead and spots the curving stairway, feels the bike shearing toward it. No way . . .

  “Come on, Major Zee!” Zamora mutters to himself, and they slam against the curb.

  A perfect angle. The motorbike pops into the air and Zamora throws his weight simultaneously to the right, unbalancing them, sending them flying almost horizontally. Danny braces for the smash of the impact . . .

  But then the wheels have found the curving concrete wall, and Zamora’s accelerating as hard as he can, and they’re still moving, the bike cutting a tight arc, miraculously climbing the looping retainer wall of the stone steps, wheels skittering for purchase—but keeping their grip. It’s years since he’s cut a line like this, but his hands and arms and legs remember the drill.

  “Hot dog!” he shouts. “Perfecto!”

  Danny’s grinning now, in spite of everything, trying to keep his eyes open, feeling the g-force push against the wall. It’s all over in a moment, the bike leveling out as Zamora brings them off the wall, onto the path above. Danny lets loose his own whoop of exhilaration. More relief than anything. And the major punches the air like he always did when the hardest trick of the night was done.

  Below them the buggy has come to a juddering halt, riders craning their necks to watch Zamora and Danny hurtle up in a curve and disappear from sight between the trees.

  The driver grabs a helmet and straps it on, and—taking a quick glance at his chunky tires—does a three-point turn. Two more of the triad men pile on board under the jaunty canopy and then the cart’s away, bumping powerfully up the stairway in pursuit.

  Zamora and Danny thunder along an alleyway, the evening gathering around them. There’s washing strung over their heads. People are watering their plants or sitting on doorsteps in the cool air. Birds sing from their cages. Dogs curl on front steps. All look up as dwarf and boy race past, shattering the calm.

  Zamora flicks on the headlight.

  “Make way for a daredevil!”

  “Where are we heading?” shouts Danny.

  “I think we’re still improvising.”

  The alleyway twists left, then right, then suddenly drops six steps before Zamora’s seen it. But it’s no problem. He steadies the bike in mid-flight and lands them with a skid that’s just about under control. They come to a stop at a tiny crossroads, engine idling.

  “All coming back to me now. Which way, Mister Danny?”

  “Left’ll take us back to the harbor road. We should still try and head for the pier.”

  But now the engine of the chasing buggy is echoing down the alleyway.

  “Let’s lose this josser first,” Zamora says. He swings the Harley right, into an even tighter alley that cuts sharply up the hillside
, left foot rapidly kicking up the gears. The buggy comes into view behind them, its helmeted driver gripping the wheel as it comes bouncing down the stairs, the other triads clinging to their seats and trying to take aim at the same time.

  The front passenger just manages to squeeze off a round, and a potted plant on a balcony just over Danny’s head explodes, fine soil and petals raining down.

  Zamora weaves up the narrowing switchback path. Occasional gaps show between the buildings, the harbor spread out below with its twinkling lights.

  Dodging around a corner, they miss by a fraction a man pushing a heavily laden bicycle. His mouth opens as they flash past, shouting a warning. But it’s too late. Zamora can do nothing to avoid the elderly men clustered around their mah-jongg game in the middle of the path. The tiles are spread on a couple of beer crates and Zamora hits them hard, sending the players tumbling from their chairs, the pieces clattering through the air like shrapnel.

  The angry shouts of the mah-jongg players cut against the revving engine of the pursuing buggy.

  They’re gaining.

  “Faster, Major.”

  “Doing my best.”

  The path bursts clear of the houses, tarmac giving way to dirt, climbing up into the trees. Bark and earth spit out from the wheels, as they surge on up the hill.

  “We’ll lose them in the trees . . .”

  There’s another couple of gunshots, and the bike judders. A hit?

  But no, nothing hurts, and Major Zee looks fine. Danny cranes around again on the pillion and sees the front passenger aiming his gun, standing up and clinging onto the canopy with the other hand. A sudden stink of gasoline floods Danny’s nostrils.

  “Losing power,” Zamora shouts. “Fuel line’s ruptured. Or the tank.”

  The Harley is slowing, sputtering. Dying beneath them.

  A vague path breaks away to their right, diving away through the trees.

  “We’ll use gravity,” Zamora shouts, and with the last gasp of the engine, flicks the bike back down the hillside.

  Dodging between tree trunks and dense undergrowth, the Harley drops fast, suspension chattering on the rough ground, shaking Danny so hard that it feels like his teeth will come loose at the roots. The track, indistinct to start with, is petering out.

  “Not . . . sure . . . about this . . .” the major is saying, and then suddenly the ground is gone from under them, has become almost vertical, and they are free-falling chaotically, spinning, riders and machine parting company, branches and leaves whiplashing their faces. Danny is crashing from one bush to the next in a confusion of foliage. A scratch sears across his face, another tears his forearm—and he lands on his back, winded, in a stinking pile of leaves and weeds.

  The bike clatters on a bit farther, rights itself, and then—like a mortally wounded animal—falls to its side, front wheel still turning, trying to get traction on the air.

  Its hot metal ticks in the sudden silence.

  29

  HOW TO REACH THE END OF THE ROAD

  Danny looks around. He can smell the crushed leaves and rotting vegetation mingling with the stinking trail of gasoline. Where’s Zamora? Gingerly he gets to his feet.

  There’s the sound of an engine close by. He freezes—but no. It’s not the buggy. Something else. More suburban, like a lawnmower.

  They’ve fallen into some kind of large garden, and a path runs away through deep pools of shadow, between flower beds and bushes, back in the direction of the village.

  “Major?” Danny’s voice sounds thin and alone. “MAJOR?”

  There’s a rustling in the bush above him as the major wriggles free of a massive rhododendron and comes sprawling down the slope, head first. Not a very dignified landing, but no worse than many in the circus.

  Zamora looks up quizzically. “Compost heap. You OK?”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  “Suppose you haven’t seen my blinking bowler, have you? Lost it for good now.”

  The engine is still rattling away close by. Zamora cocks his head. “That’s not anything that was chasing us. Let’s take a look.”

  They trot along the side of the path, keeping tight under the smudged shadows of the bushes. Around the corner they see a gardener wafting a leaf blower across the lawn, his back turned on a quad bike and trailer.

  “Second theft of the day,” Zamora says. “But we need to get a move on!”

  The gardener is wearing ear defenders against the whine of the leaf blower and, with his back turned, has no idea of what is happening behind him. Danny and Zamora sprint across the grass and onto the quad bike. Zamora turns the key, kicks the thing into life, and they’re powering down the driveway. Behind them the leaf-filled trailer bangs away, chucking up its contents as they round a corner. Double iron gates stand wide open and they’re out into a narrow backstreet.

  But their luck is running out and their timing bad. The buggy driver is idling back down the same lane, his passengers scouring the surroundings for the crash site of the Harley. They all see Danny and Zamora at the same moment—and the driver accelerates hard, piling on the speed. A volley of shots barks out above the noise of the engines.

  They’ll be on us in seconds, Danny thinks. No time to warn Zamora. He looks down at the coupling to the trailer.

  Might be slowing us down. If I can just work it loose . . .

  He eases back off the quad bike seat, and, keeping tight hold of the major’s jacket with one hand, reaches down toward the ball and socket towing point. It’s like a mini version of the coupling on the circus trailer. You just squeeze and lift the handle and—

  It’s gone. The quad bike leaps forward down the hill, with Danny desperately clinging on, trying to regain his seat. The trailer’s chaotic path catches their chasers off guard. It bangs against a wall, upsets a crate of watermelons tucked beside the path, and then flips over right in front of the buggy. Machine and passengers go flying head over heels, through the rolling watermelons, slamming into a stack of plastic crates. Looking back, Danny just has time to see the chaos: pulped green watermelon, fishing nets and traps, starfish cascading in the streetlight . . .

  Then an almighty crunch as metal and bone and jaunty canopy slam into the wall. It sounds bad.

  A few minutes later, following the flow of the land back down to the sea, they find themselves emerging onto the bay road near the spiraling stone steps. Not a trace of any of the triads.

  And no sign of Sing Sing.

  “Another lap?” Zamora says, looking grim. “Or shall we get moving?”

  “The pier’s all we’ve got. If Sing Sing got free she’ll head there,” Danny says. “And if they got her then we’ve no idea where she is. Let’s keep going.”

  They head south again, following the bay road as it twists and turns through a darker, more ragged part of the bay. The sea surges below them, white surf thrumming on the rocks.

  A few hundred feet further on, a tourist sign gives directions in both Chinese and English.

  CHEUNG PO TSAI CAVE. 1.5 KM

  SAI WAN PIER. 2 KM

  The trail leads them around the curve of the bay, past holiday chalets, thicker trees, and undergrowth. And then they glimpse a long finger of concrete stretching out into the waves of the bay, a dark line on the water. It looks deserted.

  A few more bends and they have arrived.

  There are no boats tied up against the pier—and not much else to see. Just a few posts, a lifebelt, some steps at the far end for embarking and disembarking. The waves sigh against the rocky beach. No other sound but the high-pitched ringing of a set of windbells hanging from the gutter of a long, low concrete shed.

  If this is it—their destination, the big hope from all the clues—then it’s a big anticlimax. Not quite the moment of destiny that Danny has been anticipating. No confrontation with the Dragon. No sign of Laura struggling to free herself. Just an empty, stained concrete pier and the sea beyond.

  He turns his attention to the shed—it seems there are
actually three of them, rammed together back to back. Every window is dark. Nothing is parked out front, and there’s no sign of life. Weeds and wildflowers force through the cracked roadway.

  Danny gets off the quad bike and walks over, eyes piercing the gathering gloom.

  “Laura?”

  The windbells shake in the strengthening wind.

  “Sing Sing?”

  No reply.

  A sign is tacked to the door on the first of the sheds. In rough lettering under a string of Chinese characters: CHARTER BOAT TO WANSHAN AND OTHERS.

  And then, below it, chalked at ankle height, is that same dotted pattern once again. The forty-nine dots. Small, but neatly and deliberately done. Same one circled as on Ponytail’s tattoo.

  Danny feels his stomach tightening, palms sweating. His mouth is dry.

  “Come on, Major. We must be getting warmer. Even if there’s no one here now.”

  “Want me to smash the lock?”

  Danny nods. There’s no time to spare, he thinks. And my hands are shaking. Wouldn’t do so well with the picks now.

  He looks out at the empty pier, the wide, dark sea beyond, and wonders if they have—after all—reached the end of the trail.

  Whether they are too late.

  30

  HOW TO COAX A BEAM IN THE DARKNESS

  Zamora picks up a heavy boulder and brings it down sharply on the padlock, sending echoes racing away across the water. He nods to Danny and they push through the door.

  It’s dark and silent in the first of the sheds. A smell of dead fish, mold, damp wood choking the air. Just enough light spilling through the doorway to show a desk, a lamp, some mismatching office furniture. Thick gloom beyond that.

  “Hello?” His voice is swallowed, silenced by the thickening atmosphere.

  Danny clicks on the lamp on the desk. It shows a slew of papers covered with scribbled Chinese characters, a couple of nautical charts. He moves them around, squinting for meaning among the indecipherable glyphs. On one sheet there’s a string of what look like times. Twenty-four-hour clock. Tide tables? Danny wonders. Or sailing times?