air, though moments earlier the helicopter and the gunfire were all anyone could hear.
Kamaguchi was the first to react. He raised the rifle to his shoulder and spat round after round at the motorcycle. There was no mistaking the sound of a Kalashnikov; his shots slugged the air like giant metal fists, loud and slow and heavy. They stood no chance of hitting their target. Kamaguchi was a bully, not a marksman. He didn’t know anything about stance or breathing; he just shot stuff until it fell down. And Joko Daishi was fast. He might have slowed to fifty kilometers an hour when he grabbed the bags, but he’d be closer to a hundred and fifty by now.
But Han responded almost as quickly as Kamaguchi. By the time Mariko got out onto the street, Han had drawn a bead and braced himself against the corner of a wall. He fired once. More than a block away, Joko Daishi’s back tire blew out.
It was an impossible shot, one in a million. The bike fishtailed like mad. Somehow Joko Daishi brought it under control. He couldn’t ride it, but he brought it to a stop before it killed him. He dropped it in the middle of traffic and started to run.
Mariko sprinted up the street, slapping Han on the shoulder as she passed him. She didn’t turn around to see if he would follow; his footfalls told her everything she needed to know.
She was so intent on Joko Daishi that she forgot she was running right through a firefight. A cultist’s three-round burst reminded her. It spanked off a squad car’s windshield, so close that Mariko could hear the ricochets whistling past her. She ducked and reeled away but she didn’t stop running.
Ahead she saw a little traffic jam. A bunch of panicked motorists had slammed on their brakes at the sound of gunfire, and when the people behind them did the same, there was no backing out to get away. The smart civilians ducked as low as they could. The clueless ones poked their heads out for a better view.
Mariko ignored all of them; the only thing she cared about was the motorcycle stopped at the back end. The rider, guilty of felony stupidity, had pulled out his phone to film the gun battle. “TMPD!” she shouted. “We’re taking your bike!”
“We’re what?” Han said. “You know how to ride one of these things?”
“It’s been a while,” Mariko admitted. It was true, but not the whole truth. She’d learned to ride in central Illinois, where apart from romping around on dirt bikes, ATVs, and snowmobiles there wasn’t much to do. The last time she’d ridden a motorcycle, she was twelve years old.
But nothing else was agile enough to catch up with Joko Daishi. Mariko tore off, gunning it too hard and almost dumping Han off the back. When she shifted into second, she released the clutch too quickly and got a head butt in the back of the head. After that she was stable, at least until she hit the first curb. Her turns could have been smoother. Weaving between pedestrians went as well as could be expected, inasmuch as no one broke any bones. But at least she caught sight of Joko Daishi.
He wasn’t fast on his feet. He limped with a rolling gait, and he’d made it only as far as the nearest subway station. Mariko got a glimpse of his bushy hair just as he ran down the stairs.
In the movies, she would have jumped the bike all the way down to the first landing. In her youth, she might have had the guts to try riding it down the stairs. But Mariko wasn’t a stuntwoman, and it had been a long time since she’d attacked the back hills of downstate Illinois. She jammed on the brakes, nearly throwing Han again, and stopped a few centimeters shy of sending Han, herself, and the bike in an avalanche down the stairwell.
They sprinted down, taking the steps two at a time. There was Joko Daishi, muscling his way through a sparse crowd. Han had no clear shot and Mariko had no weapon. They ran after him.
Joko Daishi vaulted the turnstiles, far more nimble than someone his age had any right to be. He hopped sidesaddle onto the next railing and slid out of view.
Mariko jumped the turnstiles; Han slipped under them in a baseball slide. Mariko snagged her toe on the way over, spiraled in midair, and landed on all fours.