“You’re mine!” Herron snarled at the Widow, who was still half-ducked to avoid being shot. “No matter how many corrupt cops you put in my way.”
She turned and ran from the room.
Herron swore and vaulted through the space vacated by the broken mirror. The shards of glass scratched and cut him in a few places on the way through, but the pain didn’t register.
Who was this woman? And how did she have such influence over the local police?
Beyond the room, the police station was almost empty. It was well after midnight, so there were only a few cops on duty, and all of them were frozen in place, confused and surprised by the gunshots. It was the only thing that saved him from being pounced on by a few dozen officers.
The Widow was right ahead of him, and every bit as quick on her feet as he was. They passed offices and open-plan cubicles before bursting out the front door and onto the street. By the time he pushed outside after her, the Widow had flagged down a car and used her own pistol to force the driver out.
Herron pulled up short and looked around as she sped off. “Shit.”
His own choices were limited, with no civilian cars in sight. His only option was a parked cop car, which wouldn’t be the most inconspicuous getaway vehicle, but the cops inside the station would be right behind him…
He broke the car window, popped the door, and swiftly hot-wired the ride. The engine roared, and he slipped behind the wheel, jamming his foot to the floor.
Behind him, the police had finally spilled into the street and half a dozen shots cracked after him. None hit anything important, and soon enough Herron was far enough away that the gunfire didn’t make a difference.
Of all the things he’d thought he might be doing the week after he left Fiji, a car chase in a stolen cop car wasn’t one of them.
He could see the Widow’s stolen car off in the distance. She tore through intersections without care for traffic, putting herself and others at significant risk. Herron had no choice but to follow, red lights be damned. He held his breath each time he approached an intersection and loudly exhaled each time he made it to the other side. The squad car was faster than the stolen sedan, and slowly but surely, he was making up ground…
… at least until another police squad car at one of those same intersections spotted the pursuit.
“Shit.” Herron winced as the cop car that was hot on his tail sped up hard enough to nudge his rear bumper. “Can’t you just leave it?”
The chase that had taken them through the streets of Manila had now turned into a giant game of chicken, with Herron forced to weave between traffic, dodge parked cars and run lights to keep up. The Widow was a madwoman with a total disregard for her own safety, forcing him to push his vehicle to the absolute limits.
The nudge failed to force him off the road, his car veering off course slightly, but straightened by a quick adjustment of the wheel. He wasn’t sure his luck would continue, but for now the cop backed off and took up station ten yards back. The officer had delivered his message to Herron that they could take him out at any time they wanted. It was better to give it up.
Herron had other ideas. He hadn’t gotten this close to the Widow—twice now—only to let her bail again. He was hot on her tail; she wasn’t much of a driver, so it wasn’t difficult to keep up, but even as he got closer to her—and to the answers he sought—he couldn’t just focus on the threat ahead.
Not with so many problems behind him as well.
One pursuer had turned into two and then into many, as squad cars scrambled from stations across the capital and moved to intercept him. Thankfully, they weren’t coordinated enough to put roadblocks or spike strips in his way—yet—but the longer this went on, the more chance there was they’d get organized. Then he’d have a real problem.
If the cops weren’t mad enough that he’d taken down a pair of detectives and bolted from their station, the theft of a car and a chase across Manila were sure to top off their outrage gauge. They’d been made to look like fools hours after he’d been paraded in front of the local media and the authorities had made it clear he’d be extradited. Only a quick capture would salve their egos.
And hide the fact that they were in league with the Widow and her hijackers.
As he shifted gear, gained speed and darted in between civilian vehicles, Herron tried to think through that link fully. He couldn’t explain the Widow’s presence on the other side of the two-way mirror, not exactly. How did she get an all-access pass to the police station and the interview? Did the hijacker chain of command go a lot higher than he’d first thought?
Laidlaw had said that the President had refused to act against them…
He continued to push the cop car to the upper limits of its speed, his eyes locked onto the Widow’s car ahead. The strobing lights of the squad cars in his rear-vision mirror were a distraction, as was the wail of a half-dozen sirens, which were doing more to wake up every citizen in the capital than bring his car to a halt.
Up ahead, the road branched at a Y-shaped intersection. Herron’s eyes narrowed—the police had finally got their act together, with roadblocks set up across both roads. Two squad cars were parked across each lane, while spike strips were deployed in front of them. Of most concern were the dozen cops with their weapons drawn, prepared to fill Herron and his ride with holes.
It gave him, and the Widow, mere seconds to choose a path.
Her choice would reveal a lot.
The seconds ticked down and, as he’d expected, she didn’t amend her course, seemingly content to hit the roadblock and trust her friends in the police force would take care of her, the situation and the threat Herron posed. He figured about twenty seconds before she hit the roadblock, so he had little time to choose.
In the end, it only took him two.
The cop cars in pursuit peeled off as he approached the roadblock. That was standard, but they did it too early, and that told Herron they’d been ordered to keep plenty of distance. And the only reason for that would be because they knew his car would soon be filled with lead. They wanted to avoid collateral damage.
They’d pursued him closely and fired a few shots to keep him honest, but their main game was the roadblock up ahead, a trap they were corralling him into. And he’d driven right into it. He cursed himself for having such tunnel vision for the chase but knew now at least he had to take urgent action, to get himself clear of danger and the Widow out of the safe embrace of the law.
Their trap sprung, the cops obviously didn’t think he could do it, but Herron had made a career out of impossible actions. He shifted his focus to the Widow’s car up ahead. Only a dozen yards in front, it was speeding for the roadblock.
Herron floored the accelerator. The engine roared in response and the police cruiser jerked forward. He closed in on the sedan and got his hood next to the rear left corner of the vehicle.
“Time to see if you can pass your stunt licence.”
He jerked the wheel suddenly and smashed violently into the Widow’s car.
The damaged vehicle skidded under the impact, then veered left as she overcompensated. Herron kept his eyes on her vehicle as he steered away, then back into her, then again. On the third impact, she spun the car out and barely avoided crashing into a parked vehicle as she screeched to a halt.
But in his desperation to get her, Herron had screwed up as well.
He looked ahead and saw a car stopped at a set of lights. He was approaching too fast to avoid a collision, so he stiffened and braced for the impact he knew was coming. His cop car collided with the stationary vehicle with a sickening crunch and his head slammed into the airbag.
Coughing as the bag deflated, Herron cursed. “Damn it!”
He extracted himself from behind the wheel, the seatbelt and the mashed car as quickly as he could, stopping only briefly to see that the driver of the vehicle in front of him was okay. Satisfied, he turned and raised his pistol at the Widow’s vehicle, which he’d left a few do
zen yards back.
Her car was a mess, but she’d already got out of it. He saw her running away from him, down the street and into an alleyway, clearly knowing she’d caught a break and not wasting time looking back at him.
Herron cursed and ran after her.
7
The smart thing to do would be to bug out.
He could lie low for a few weeks, steal a boat and get far away from the Philippines, where the cops knew his name, the media had broadcast his location, and it was likely every enemy he’d ever had would soon be on a plane to look for him.
But Herron couldn’t give up. His pledge to Laidlaw made this a mission… and he’d never once failed to complete a mission. Sure, he’d partially disrupted the hijackers’ operation, killed almost a dozen of them on board his own yacht and another bunch on the container ship, but if the Widow got away, the job would only be partially completed.
The spider would still have its head.
She’d hatch more eggs.
Put others in danger.
And so he gave chase.
His arms pistoned and his legs chewed up the distance in great strides as he powered after her. She surprised him with how nimble she was, but he was making up the ground quickly, until she looked over her shoulder, smiled and broke left into a crowded marketplace.
Herron groaned as he followed her. “Give me a break…”
Not quite the tin-roof shanty market common throughout Asia, it was hardly a luxury shopping destination either. Each stall was a dozen feet wide and almost as deep, selling everything from tourist trinkets to clothing to fresh produce, meat, and fish—the entire spectrum of life.
Herron’s sole focus, however, was on the Widow.
He pushed past one shopper and then another who’d ambled into his path. He shouted at them to get out of the way. Most heeded his call, but one didn’t—an elderly man wandered in front of him, pushing a shopping cart. Herron barrelled into it, toppling it over.
As vegetables and groceries littered the ground, the old man also collapsed under the impact. Feet slipping on squashed tomatoes and bananas, the old man clutching at his jacket for help, Herron slowed only long enough to ease the man to the ground, then sprinted off after the Widow as onlookers stared.
But that second or two spent helping the old guy had proven costly, because he’d lost sight of her. She’d be well ahead of him now, perhaps impossible to catch. If bailing on the mission was the smart thing for him to do, the same was surely true for her, and if she disappeared now, he’d struggle to find her again.
He pushed deeper into the market, jostling more shoppers, eyes sweeping the crowds. He looked inside market stalls, amongst the people, and in every corner and shadow. But the market was cavernous—potentially the largest in Manila—and the Widow was nowhere to be seen.
The one fact in his favour was that the market was a labyrinth. His sense of direction was excellent, but even he had been turned around more than once by the uncoordinated distribution of the stalls and the walkway. It was the sort of disorganised, unplanned and organic layout locals would navigate in their sleep, but anyone foreign to the market—Herron and, he hoped, the Widow—could be tripped up by.
It gave him a chance, albeit not a very good one.
He pulled up short at a map of the market stuck to a concrete wall. It was covered in text he couldn’t understand, but the diagrammatic outline of the market was easy enough to interpret in any language. It showed the maze of stalls and four exits, one at each point of the compass.
Four chances to catch her. One correct choice. He had to gamble.
With each moment of hesitation, each second studying the map, the Widow moved further away, but he had to choose correctly. He disregarded the southern exit, through which they’d entered; it was less likely she’d double back. He also ruled out the eastern exit because it led out to a large park. The open spaces would probably have fewer people than the tight concentration of bodies on Manila’s bustling streets.
No, if she chose well, she’d pick the exit that took her to the streets, somewhere she could hide in the crowd long enough to melt away forever.
Herron took a moment more to decide between the northern and western exits, settling on the latter. He figured there was a greater chance the Widow would try to change direction rather than heading directly south to north. It wasn’t a confident bet, but he had to make a call quickly and get on with the chase.
He set off through the market, painfully aware of the time he’d just lost considering his options. He ran down the stallholder walkway to steal some time back, a route reserved for staff and owners of stalls. Shouts and curses followed him as he passed pitch after pitch, weaving between boxes of everything from fruit to home wares.
As he neared the western exit, he spotted her. She was fighting her way through the crowd with far less success than he had, and for once, Herron was glad to be the obnoxious American, visible to all and loathed for his brashness. Sacrificing politeness meant he’d made better time.
Herron followed her outside, far enough back and in amongst the crowd that she didn’t notice him when she checked behind her, despite the locals tutting and glaring as he barrelled past them. He inched closer to her; she was good, but he was better, content to bide his time even as cop cars blazed past and headed towards his last-known location.
It didn’t matter; they’d already lost containment, and he had their prize in his sights.
When the last of the cop cars had passed, he picked up his pace and moved within striking distance of the Widow. With each passing second, he expected her to look over her shoulder, spot him, and run. He’d give chase if that happened… but it didn’t. Now she was clear of the market, she was once more confident in herself and her position.
She was a criminal leader, supported by the cops and the government.
She did not need to run.
Or so she thought.
Close enough at last, and not caring who saw him do it, Herron grabbed her around the neck and jammed his pistol into her back. “Toss your gun into the trash can.”
The Widow struggled as much as Herron’s headlock permitted, croaking an appeal for help. But while several of the locals had spotted what was happening, they gave the pair a wide berth, scuttling away nervously. Herron noticed a few had pulled out their cell phones to film him or call the cops, but he ignored them. He planned to be long gone before the cops doubled back to his location.
“The gun.” Herron squeezed her throat tighter and pressed the gun into her harder. “I will not ask again.”
She finally complied. Moving slowly so Herron wouldn’t be spooked and put a bullet in her, she reached into her purse and removed the pistol she’d used to hijack the car. Lifting it from the tip of the barrel using her thumb and index finger, she was careful not to get anywhere near the trigger. A second later, the gun was in a trash can and Herron had a grin on his face.
But it disappeared as he looked around for transport options, because he noticed where they were.
Just across the road from them stood the Chinese Embassy.
His eyes shifted to the Embassy gate and the CCTV cameras positioned above it, and suddenly Herron knew everything he needed to know. The Widow’s plea for help hadn’t been aimed at the passers-by around them, but the Embassy security team that would be alert for anything outside their walls.
“I wondered why the head of a piracy racket was being treated like a VIP by the cops…” Herron muttered. “But now it’s all so much clearer to me.”
When she kept quiet in response to his suggestive accusation, Herron kept that discussion on ice. There’d be all the time in the world for it later; for now, he was keen to get away before the police responded to the calls from those concerned citizens. But in the moment he was distracted, she finally made her move.
Herron cried out in pain as a small blade dug into his thigh: a concealed knife the Widow had produced from somewhere. He’d lazily assumed she was unar
med, because if she’d had a gun she would have used it before now, but he’d been so overcome by a red haze of anger that he’d neglected to frisk her.
It was a rookie mistake that might prove deadly.
As he winced, distracted by the pain, an elbow slammed into his stomach, and his grip loosened just enough for the Widow to slip free.
“Bitch,” he spat. “You’re dead.”
She backed away from him, the small knife in her hand poised to strike, a broad smile on her flushed-red face. “You had your chance. You took too long. Now you’re mine.”
Herron raised his pistol to finish her once and for all, but again, he hesitated. He needed her alive for a little longer yet, to make sure he’d taken the head off the piracy ring. She had other ideas. A second of delay was all she needed to be in his face, slashing out at the hand that held the pistol, the razor-sharp blade cutting once, twice.
Herron cursed as his fingers released the pistol. It hit the ground and she kicked it away, but he could do nothing to retrieve it because she was on him. The blade danced in her hands, probing his defences and slicing, all the while onlookers gasping and crying out in panic around them. He could do little more than fend away the more serious strikes, each time taking a cut for his troubles, the old truism proving true.
In a knife fight, one person ends up cut, and the other ends up dead.
Backing away to give himself the space and time to keep her at bay, he stole a split-second glance around them. The gates of the Embassy were still closed, so nobody was coming to help her, but nobody on the street was looking to aid him either. The cops were getting closer, judging by the sirens, and there was nothing immediate to hand for him to use as a weapon of his own.
He took another cut.
Another.
Another.
His blood was flowing freely now, the deep wound in his thigh combining with a half-dozen shallow ones to stain his clothing and leave small dribbles on the sidewalk as he retreated from her. He hadn’t taken any critical wounds—yet—but each slowed him down and gave her a little more ascendency.
The Azure Backlash Page 7