shinkansen’s white-painted carriages were little more than dim blocks shrinking into the distance ahead and behind, the only illumination the glow of the train’s internal lights on the concrete trackside – and the dazzling blue flashes of electrical sparks where a pantograph arm touched the overhead high-tension cables.
The roof was smooth except for a pair of parallel ribs running its length, about two feet apart. Eddie lay flat between them, palms and toes pushing against the low aluminium ridges, and crawled forward. Moving towards the train’s rear would be far easier, but it would leave him completely exposed, whereas the pantograph’s raised base was just a few metres ahead. Getting over it would give him some protection against bullets.
However small.
The exposed top of his head stung and prickled as dust and grit snatched up by the train’s wake hit him at the takeoff speed of a 747. He kept moving. Even though the pantograph’s base was streamlined, it still disrupted the airflow, blasting a swirling tornado into Eddie’s face as he got closer. He had to turn his head and bury his chin into his shoulder just to draw a breath.
Movement behind – a man emerging from the lit rectangle of the hatch.
The sight of the agent galvanised him. He scrambled along the roof like a gecko, the airflow trying to tear him off with every movement. Another sharp stab as something hit him above one eye, then he reached the pantograph and pulled himself over its base, careful to avoid the arm itself—
A gunshot!
He flattened himself against the roof, not sure how the gunman had missed from such close range. Another shot – but still he didn’t feel the agonising slam and burn of a bullet impact. He grabbed the rooftop ribs again and pulled himself onwards, risking a look back. A flash from the power line revealed the agent halfway out of the hatch, anger clear even through the force of the wind on his face.
That same wind had saved Eddie. The gunman’s aim was thrown wildly off as the 180mph gale lashed his arm.
But now the agent was climbing out after him. No matter how strong the blast, he couldn’t miss from a distance of two feet. Eddie set off again, muscles already aching. He squinted ahead. Machinery was set into the smooth aluminium expanse of the roof, but at the very far end of the carriage. He had a long way to go before knowing if it would help or hinder him.
And his opponent was younger, faster, not sore from multiple injuries. He was already slipping past the pantograph, smoothly avoiding the electrified arm like liquid metal. All Eddie could do was keep going, knowing that the other man would be close enough for an unmissable shot in seconds—
A sudden bolt of pain – but in his face, not from behind. The shock almost made him lose his grip.
An insect, he realised. He had just hit a bug, the unfortunate creature splattering against his forehead.
If something so small could hurt so much . . . what about something larger?
Even as the idea blazed through his mind, he was already shifting position, bringing one hand to his jacket pocket. It found hard, cold metal – his lighter.
He drew it out, looking back. The agent was mere feet behind him. The man brought up his gun, took aim—
Eddie tossed the lighter over his shoulder.
Instantly caught by the slipstream, it shot backwards and hit the gunman’s face with the force of a punch. He screamed as blood streamed from his nose – then Eddie’s boots cracked against his head as the Englishman deliberately raised his hands and let the wind whip him back along the smooth metal surface. The agent lost his hold and tumbled along the roof—
Into the overhead cable.
Tens of thousands of volts surged through him, his hair instantly bursting into flames. A fiery halo surrounded his head as the cable sliced vertically down through his skull like a cheesewire. Friction dragged him backwards – into the arm, which collapsed under his weight.
Registering a dangerous loss of power from one of its pantographs, the train’s computers immediately applied the emergency brakes.
Eddie had just regained his grip on the rooftop, but even had he been equipped with suckers on his hands and feet he wouldn’t have been able to hold on against the abrupt deceleration. Momentum hurled him forward. The low ridges weren’t enough to channel him – he bumped over them, sliding towards the edge and a