The Rising Sea (NUMA Files 15)

Gunfire rang out before Kurt could do anything else. Ricochets and near misses forced him off the forklift. He dove to the ground and took cover. By the time he looked up, Han’s remaining guard was dragging Nagano to the helipad.

Kurt rose up, intending to give chase, but Ushi-Oni blocked the way. Instead of a gun, Oni held a gleaming katana sword.

He waved the sword toward Kurt. “To the samurai, a blade was worthless if it couldn’t cut a man in half with a single swing. They tested their weapons on captives and criminals. I’m going to test this one on you.”

He stepped forward and swung at a diagonal angle. Kurt jumped behind the stationary forklift and the blade slammed against the protective cage. Looking for any kind of weapon to defend himself with, Kurt grabbed a pry bar from the side of the forklift.

“That won’t help you,” Oni said. He lunged forward again, swinging for Kurt’s head.

Kurt ducked and held the pry bar up at the same time. It deflected the blade just enough to save him. But the sword came back from the other direction and knocked the bar from Kurt’s hand. A third swing forced Kurt to dive away once more.

He rolled and came up bleeding. His suit was slashed, his shirt was sliced and there was blood oozing from a line on the back of his arm. The tip of the blade had made so fine a cut, Kurt barely felt it.

“The next one will take your head,” Oni insisted.

Kurt didn’t doubt it, but the sound of fire engines closing in and of the helicopter landing gave him hope. “If I were you, I’d get out of here. You’ll never get to spend Han’s money if you’re serving life in prison.”

Kurt’s words brought the fury of the Demon down on him. The sword came hard once more. Kurt moved to the side, keeping the forklift between him and Oni. Oni went one way, Kurt went the other. It was an effective defense if reinforcements showed up. But Kurt needed an offense. Now.

He lunged for the controls, reaching into the cage, turning the key and spinning the small wheel. The forklift jerked to the side and spun randomly. Oni was knocked backward, but more of Han’s men were closing in.

Kurt had no choice. He jumped onto the forklift and threw it into reverse, speeding away from Oni and the men as the helicopter touched down. He raced back into the warehouse, found himself surrounded but was bought freedom when Akiko came crashing through the stacks of equipment and crates in a ten-wheeled truck.

As Han’s men took cover from the avalanche, Kurt climbed into the truck and Akiko backed out of the warehouse. She drove across the lot, blasted her way through the gate and turned down the access road as the fire trucks came racing up it.

“Keep going,” he said. “Don’t stop for anything, not even the police.”

As she drove, Kurt got on the phone. “Joe, where are you? They took Nagano in the helicopter.”

“I saw that,” Joe replied. “I’m trying to follow it and get a tail number. But I’m running out of road.”

“Where are they headed?”

“Southwest. Along the bay.”

* * *

• • •

JOE DROVE with skills that would have matched Kurt out on the racetrack, but he had to deal with real-world issues: other cars, potholes and pedestrians. He swerved around a slow-moving bus, lost sight of the helicopter as it went behind the trees and then found it again as the view opened up.

He came to a one-way road, ignored the rules of traffic and followed it downhill. By the way it sloped, he knew he was heading for the shoreline.

A building blocked his view. Seconds later, a small car almost hit him head-on. Horns blared and Joe drove into the gutter, where he avoided taking out a fire hydrant. He pulled back onto a two-way street as soon as he could.

“Where’d you go?” he said, craning his neck around and looking for the fleeing helicopter.

Finally, he saw it again, farther out over the water; it was definitely heading out to sea.

He found another street, sped up again and then slammed on the brakes as his lights reflected off a sign at the end of the road. The tires screeched and the Skyline GT-R slid to a stop inches from a fifty-foot drop.

Joe got out of the car and raised the binoculars. He tracked the helicopter for another thirty seconds and then its lights went out and it vanished in the night sky.

40

WASHINGTON, D.C.

THE EARTH STUDIES LAB filled the basement of the main NUMA building in Washington, D.C. It was located down there for purely practical reasons. Being an experimental facility, it took