The carving knife, I’ve been looking for during my scrabbling theatrics, has been found and grabbed from amongst the mess I swiped onto the floor earlier. It feels heavy in my hand. It has an oversized handle and a long blade. It’s too imbalanced to throw, but...
Through half closed eyes I watch as the brute approaches, pulling his leg dramatically backwards for his kick. Now all of his weight is pressed firmly down onto his static standing foot. Perfect. At the last moment, I roll myself violently toward him and, with both hands, drive the sharp metal into the boot he is currently balancing on. With the added momentum of my rotation, I feel it pierce first leather, then flesh, then rubber, and finally floorboard as I impale his scuffed Doc Martin onto the floor.
“Aaaarrghhhh!” He yells, somewhat understatedly given the amount of blood spraying out of my alternative podiatry, and I continue to roll myself over and to one side. Time to flick one of my stilettos out of its holster, and down my sleeve into my palm. These are much better knives, and they’re long overdue a proper testing.
Leaping to my feet, I know I have to move quickly, and spin through a quarter turn so I can sight myself up on the short guy. He’s still standing there, impotently, mouth agog, in front of the curtain-shrouded windows which lead to the apartment’s balcony, but this is not the time for thinking. Now is the time for reflex. Unleashing the weapon, I watch as it spins elegantly through the air on a perfect but, annoyingly, slightly high trajectory. The flickering silvery blade flashes across the gap, and disappears into the sizeable o-shaped, brown-toothed, gaping maw of the little man’s gormless mouth, and buries itself snugly into his gullet. I must have been fixated on his worthless waggling tonsils when I released it...
“Gogg,” he says, amusingly, as the blade rams home and knocks him backwards into the embrace of heavy curtain cloth. He perches there for a second, staring wildly at me even as the spark fades in his eyes, and then he slides slowly down leaving a smear of blood all the way from impact point to carpet.
Crap. I was hoping to hit him in the chest.
Well, it can’t be helped...
Another howl from my quarter-crucified friend draws my attention and standing, as I am, with my back to him, I fold myself forwards and back-kick him sideways so he’s knocked awkwardly across his impaled leg. I can almost hear his flesh tearing inside the firmly fixed footwear, and his howling turns into another incoherent scream of agony.
Much more appropriate.
I finish the kick and land smoothly. The tables are completely reversed. I am the looming predator. He is the prostrate prey.
He’s scrabbling toward his boot, wanting to pull out the knife. Wanting freedom.
I move around him, and kick out of reach the remaining rubbish and cutlery, then head over to the corner of the room to retrieve my weapon.
~~~~~
Jack came round with a jolt and thrust himself up into a sitting position. He had no idea whether he’d been out for a minute or an hour. A pair of large, shadowy, sock-clad feet poked upwards in front of him. They weren’t moving.
Pulling himself to his feet, he could see that the fat bloke was lying on his back in the darkness, his face a paler puddle of brightness smeared with darker swathes of blood which had spewed from his smashed forehead and nose. A larger pool of dark sticky liquid was spreading out around his flaccid upturned face onto the dimly lit floor. The man’s eyes were wide open. Staring upwards.
‘Some head-butt,’ thought Jack to himself, then stumbled over something by his feet.
Crouching quickly he could feel metal rails. Pieces of an old iron bed. They were scattered over the floor and neither he nor his assailant had had any chance to know they were there.
He moved alongside the body and felt the man’s neck for a pulse.
Nothing.
Reaching further back he felt more ironwork protruding from behind the dead man’s skull.
“Shit,” he muttered thankfully. Fatboy must’ve tripped and fallen backwards. The head-butt had smashed his face, and an old iron bedstead had smashed his skull. Luck must be on his side today. Otherwise he’d likely be dead.
Suddenly he was aware of the silence from the neighbouring apartment.
“F*ck,” he muttered, remembering that Nick had been facing two men on his own.
Scrambling quietly through the darkness, he made his way on all fours to the distant corner of the room, fished around, recovered his Browning, and gently pushed home a spare magazine.
Someone howled next door.
A male voice. Whoever it was, they were in a lot of pain.
He hoped it wasn’t Nick.
He readied his weapon and crept back out into the hallway.
~~~~~
The thug continues with his attempts to extricate himself.
Idiot.
I stride back over to him and stamp downwards, with the slightest touch of angle, scraping my foot along his pinned ankle and achilles tendon and he howls again at the sliding, twisting, movement this has caused. He can consider that as payback for the couple of nasty bruises that I’ve got in my nether-regions.
It’s unnervingly quiet from the other room and I wonder what’s happened to Jack.
“Let’s have a little chat,” I rasp at the brute, chambering a fresh round and pointing the muzzle of my weapon at his sweating forehead...
“Fattyú...,” he spits unhelpfully.
This is useless. He probably can’t, or won’t, speak English to me.
“He called you a bastard.”
The voice startles me, and I swing my attention and gun to the doorway where I find myself looking straight down the barrel of Jack’s similarly readied weapon. His face is covered in blood, as is the top of his jacket. “Glad you could drop by,” I grunt.
He scans the carnage. “This is a f*cking mess,” he observes candidly as he pushes himself up from the doorframe he’s leaning against and heads behind the table to check on the short guy.
“He’s dead,” I report.
There’s a slick, soft, plopping sound and Jack reappears from behind the table with my switchblade. “So it seems,” he says, using the tabletop to press the blade back into the hilt. “Yours, I presume,” he says, tossing the sheathed knife across to me.
I catch it with my free hand. “You okay?” I ask.
“Just shaken up,” he says. “I’ll be as right as rain in a few minutes.” He approaches. “Let me take over here.” He bends toward the stricken Hungarian. “Sikand, mikor jön haza?” he demands menacingly. “When will Sikand come back?” He grabs the man’s head, jerks it sideways, and presses his Browning’s muzzle into the proffered cheek.
“I’m fine too,” I say. “Thanks for asking.”
He glances at me. His eyes sparkle, betraying that he’s amused by my comment, but his expression remains fixed, grim, aggressive...
“Sikand, mikor jön haza?” he repeats forcefully.
“He went for food,” the brute replies, in slightly accented but otherwise perfect English.
“I already know that,” growls Jack. “How long did he say he would be? Tell me!”
The thug shrugs. “Not long,” he mutters, grinning contemptuously at us. “Then he will cut your stinking balls off...”
Outside in the hallway, the outer door to the apartment suddenly slammed open.
~~~~~
Azat Sikand snarled out loud as he walked round the corner into Fecske Street. He could see a light shining out from a small gap in one of the blackout curtains. The stupid Hungarians must’ve disturbed it somehow. Idiots. They’d been given very explicit instructions: buy a nondescript apartment somewhere immediately outside of the city centre; soundproof and secure it; ensure, if possible, that it was isolated from other tenants; keep comings and goings to a minimum; blackout the windows. In other words: make the place look unoccupied. Their reward was that they’d get to keep the place, along with any spare cash from the purchase and security work – though it seemed to him that they’d already pocketed the majority of the money, with only the soundproofing appearing to have been done – once the location had been used. This whole place stank of being compromised. If the Hungarians couldn’t even keep to the rules while he was there, how did they behave when he wasn’t?
Nagpal would be furious. Perhaps he should clean up here? Remove the risk of some connection being made. The hapless monkeys would no doubt have a pile of cash stashed away. He could take it off their miserable hands. It might be useful for later, or perhaps it could fund a better place in Constanta.
Yes.
He’d torture the big one and the two wimps would squeal.
The trouble was, he’d have to get them out of the city first. He couldn’t dispose of them here. He’d have to take them out for a little drive into the countryside in the morning. Take them to collect a carefully hidden, final cash payment. A nonexistent cash payment.
Storming furiously into the lobby, he noticed that one of the ground floor doors was ajar. In the narrow gap he could just make out the silhouette of the flat’s occupant before it slammed closed again.
Strange.
He hurried up the staircase.
On the next landing, another door – this time on the right hand side – was hurriedly closed. From downstairs he heard the noise of a television being turned up extra loud. What was going on? What had drawn the other tenants to peek out from behind the security of their solid front doors?
He moved upwards. The third floor was empty and had no residents. At least the Hungarians had got that right. Then he carefully made his way to the final landing...
The light was out and he elected to leave it switched off.
Light was creeping out from around the apartment’s door frame...
This wasn’t right.
He pulled out his pistol and carefully approached the doorway. Then, with his free arm, he slammed the apartment door open...
His eyes widened.
The inner security door was gaping open. The flat beyond it looked like a war-zone. There was a body lying untidily on the floor behind the dining table. A wide stripe of bright red ran down the disrupted curtains to where the body was sprawled. He’d seen enough cadavers to know instantly that the man was dead, and he could also see that, in death, this was the Hungarian responsible for nudging open the offending drapes...
~~~~~
“CSAPDA!” yells the impaled Hungarian. “IS A TRAP!”
The sound of footsteps pounding away, down the stairs, tells us that the warning has been heeded.
“Get the pack!” shouts Jack.
I scan the room, spot the rucksack propped against one of the walls in the far corner and rush over to it. There’s a single, loud cough from behind me, then a softer splattering sound immediately followed by a woody thwack. I heave the pack onto my shoulder, and turn to see the Hungarian crumple lifelessly onto the floorboards.
Jack is already moving toward the doorway, smoking pistol extended in front of him. “Come on!” he yells.
~~~~~
Sikand raced down the stairs. The goat-f*cking Hungarians must’ve been being watched! Praise to Allah, he’d chosen to go out for dinner...
He charged out of the front door.
His car was too far away and might also be compromised. He needed to get away from here, quickly...
Turning right, he raced along Fecske Street, pulling his Makarov nine-millimetre pistol out of his jacket as he ran. He’d lost the backpack but so be it. There wasn’t anything valuable inside anyway: just some spare clothes, some cash, and a small surprise to ward off unwelcome intruders.
At the next junction he saw two motorbikes approaching. They were line astern of each other and their engines burbled powerfully as they ticked over along the road.
He moved into the shadows and glanced back toward the apartment block.
Two shadowy figures burst out onto the pavement.
He raised his gun, fired twice in their direction, and turned back to the approaching vehicles.
~~~~~
We crouch instinctively at the sound of loud gunfire and I hear the noise of bullets wildly ricocheting randomly past us and onward down the street. Jack starts running, half-crouched, away from me, heading to the right.
“This way!” he shouts. “He’s ahead of us at the junction! Stay on that side!”
I heft the other bag strap up onto my shoulder, crouch as best I can with the added weight on my back, and run along the line of the various apartment buildings on this side of the street. Jack is a shadow flickering along the frontages on the other side of the road.
A sudden eruption of gunfire makes me squeeze myself tighter into the building next to me and I see bright flashes of light from the junction ahead of us. Four shots. Rapid succession. They don’t seem to be in this direction.
Then there are squealing, scraping noises and, suddenly, an upturned motorbike slides across the junction. Then a body rolls into view; tumbling once, then twice, then it flops to rest, static amongst the pools of light from the surrounding street-lamps.
We continue forwards. I can hear the sound of another motorbike engine revving angrily.
Then there’s another squeal of punished rubber on tarmac...
And Sikand flashes past.
“F*cking Hell!” screams Jack, pounding forwards to where the other crashed bike is still lying, ticking over gently to itself, against the distant wall. “Come on!”
I sprint out from cover, and head toward him. The body lying on the ground twitches as I run past, but there is a fist-sized hole in the back of the poor soul’s leather jacket, and another where the back of his or her helmet should have been. Glancing right I can see a second body sprawled, further back, in the middle of the road. There’s nothing I can do for them now.
Jack has hauled the bike upright and leapt astride it.
“Get on!” he yells, gunning the throttle.
~~~~~
Sikand’s bike roared angrily as he aimed it down Bérkocsis Street towards the city, swerving from side to side between the parked cars which lined both sides of the road. He was struggling with the unfamiliar machine which bucked and bounced beneath him.
He’d elected to take out both bikers for speed, certainty, and to give himself options when they crashed. He now had to hope that his pursuers’ vehicle was damaged, or that they were worse riders than him. There were two of them. That would either slow them down, if they both chose to use the second bike, or even the odds, if they split up and one of them stayed behind.
Finally he hit a clear stretch and pulled the clutch. Left boot up.
At last! Clear road.
Third.
Fourth.
He hurtled toward the approaching junction.
József Körút was busy and the lights in his direction were red. Solid streams of car headlights poured past in both directions in front of him.
He eased off on the throttle.
~~~~~
Jack felt Nick leap onto the small pillion seat behind him. “Hold on!” he shouted and opened up the throttle.
The front wheel of the bike sprang up into the air.
“Christ!” he yelled, leaning forwards, and letting off the accelerator, so as to bring the errant rubber slamming back onto the tarmac.
He could see Sikand’s bike fishtailing ahead of him. He could also see that the other man was faced with the challenge of the busy main street junction and a sudden flare of brake-light told Jack that he had an opportunity to close the gap.
He pulled the bike into the middle of the street and, ready for the power this time, leaned forward over the tank so he was behind the tiny windshield and opened the racing machine up.
‘Nick had better be holding on tight,’ he thought to himself.
~~~~~
There was no way for him to get across the junction.
Sikand pushed down hard on the back brake lever, stomped two clumsy down shifts, and heaved the heavy machine to the right.
The bike tyre locked up, sliding alarmingly beneath him, then bit again, pulling the bike upright and, fighting the resulting slow speed tank slapping, he bounced from side to side up onto the pavement, and then down again, as he steered himself into a small gap in the flow of vehicles on the main road.
~~~~~
Jack watched as Sikand’s bike squirmed to a virtual standstill in a cloud of its own tyre smoke, then burst off again, weaving viciously as it mounted the sidewalk, and disappeared off to the right. He stayed on the gas for as long as he dared.
“Hold on!” he shouted pointlessly into the bike’s tiny dashboard.
~~~~~
I’m clinging on for dear life.
Jack is yelling stuff. Probably just swear words, I imagine.
My hands are trying to weld themselves permanently into the two grab handles that I found, by some instinctive reaction, when he tried to wheelie me back into the tarmac. The side of my face is pressed hard against the cotton of his jacket and the rigid slab of his back-muscles.
~~~~~
The traffic suddenly stopped, just as if Moses had appeared and waved his crook in front of him and miraculously commanded a gap to open. Jack twisted the throttle back up and watched with glee as the lights at the junction started to change in his favour.
This was definitely turning into his lucky day.
~~~~~
Sikand zigzagged in and out of the orderly procession of traffic, squirting the throttle to zip around each car, and then easing off to swing back into the flow.
His nearside wing mirror flapped and banged uselessly along the side of the small fairing: it had been smashed when the bike had been dropped by its murdered owner. The offside one was okay.
He glanced in it as he prepared for his next overtake, and saw that the traffic had stopped at the lights behind him. The other bike suddenly burst out, power-sliding elegantly across the tiny rectangular reflection, and he could hear the pursuing throttle note rising to a piercing scream even above the roaring of his own machine.
There was another major junction in front of him.
He headed for the exit slip road.
~~~~~
Serenaded by angry horns and the occasional snatch of hurled verbal abuse, Jack swept up to the back of and then along the line of traffic.
Sikand was turning off.
He squirted through a narrow gap between the disturbed motorists, then blasted along the off-slip. His quarry was not demonstrating good biking skills and, even better, was currently heading toward the congested city centre along another main road. The traffic was busy but, for the moment, still flowing. Sikand was having to take big risks, every time he jumped out of the flow into the oncoming traffic to overtake.
Jack needed to be a touch more circumspect.
It would be fine if his target mushed himself. Not so good if Jack did it.
~~~~~
Sikand pulled out, the other bike was still on his tail.
Fifty metres in front of him a car lazily pulled out from a side street, into the oncoming lane, filling the gap he was in the middle of. Headlights swung round and blared into his eyes as the car turned into the rapidly dwindling space in front of him.
He flung the bike even further to the left, bouncing back up onto the pavement, sending screaming pedestrians scattering in all directions...
~~~~~
Jack is still hurtling along, but not accelerating and decelerating quite as aggressively as he was before, so I risk lifting my head to look past his shoulder.
Brightly lit shopfronts flash past on both sides. Cars weave erratically in front of us, presumably as Sikand navigates his route through them. Suddenly I see our adversary’s machine flick out of the line of traffic, and straight into the path of an oncoming vehicle.
“Shit!” I hear myself shout, but somehow the terrorist manages to swerve violently over onto the far pavement.
Pedestrians are running in all directions.
The bike pops back into view, through a gap in the oncoming flow, and blends in on the right side.
For some reason, I’m thinking to myself that it would have to be one hell of a shot to hit a randomly moving target like this one. Especially amongst so many innocent bystanders.
The thought makes me smile.
~~~~~
Two looming, arched, strings of lights rose above the Erzsébet Bridge as it straddled the dark waters of the Danube in front of him.
Glancing into the wing mirror, Sikand could see that his pursuers were holding station. Matching his pace but not taking the same risks as he was.
Very wise. That last manoeuvre had shaken him up.
He needed to find somewhere he could either lose them, or take them on.
He had two shots left in the Makarov, and another full magazine in his jacket pocket.
He needed to get off these busy roads.
Traffic was backing up on the approach to the bridge.
This wasn’t good.
He pulled the bike to the right and took to the pavement again.
~~~~~
Jack had no choice. Faced with lines of cars, all slowing for the river crossing, and with Sikand getting away, he too headed for the pavement.
Here he was forced to slow down and swerve from side to side to get around the swirling masses of terrified pedestrians. People were hurling themselves in all directions to get out of the way of the two roaring high-powered motorcycles, and he picked his way as carefully as he could amongst them.
There was another road ahead, leading down to one side, and which appeared to run parallel with the Danube. He saw Sikand reach it, turn, and then speed off down its gentle incline.
Jack quickly reached the junction and bounced the bike back down onto the roadway.
~~~~~
The bike has been lurching from side to side as Jack struggles to avoid the startled crowds. At these lower speeds I’ve been able to grapple my Browning out from inside my jacket. Now I’m holding on to the bike with one hand. The gun is in my other: pressed tight between me and my pilot.
Jack flicks the bike to the right and then heads down a short incline. This road is following the edge of the river. Bright light continues to shine down from the buildings, up above us, on our right hand side. The river is a swathe of dark shadows to our left. Iron railings like scaffold poles mark the boundary between us and the water.
Traffic is lighter on this road, and Sikand has resumed his zigzag and squirt methodology for keeping in front of us. Jack is matching him easily, not least because, off the main drag, cars are often pulling over to the side after Sikand has frightened them with his sudden, noisy and unexpected overtaking manoeuvres.
Jack spots a gap and I predict his response. He opens the throttle, smoothly accelerating, and I grip tight to my one handhold.
We close quickly.
It’s the nearest we’ve been to him.
I pull my gun out from its protective nest and thrust my arm past Jack’s head.
“NO F*ckING WAY!” he screams into the oncoming airstream.
I keep my arm forwards.
Sikand is weaving backwards and forwards across my view, looking for his next opportunity to sprint away from us.
“DON’T DO IT!” yells the wildly blowing mass of brown hair.
“Not now,” whispers my Dad’s voice out of nowhere, and I frown to myself, surprised at this unexpected spiritual intervention.
Sikand starts to drift right again. He emerges past Jack’s right earlobe.
I am ready.
“Not now,” the spectral voice whispers again, and suddenly a woman runs out on foot from the shadows. She staggers straight into the road in front of us. She’s appeared out of nowhere and now she’s stupidly standing there, with her back to us, staring after Sikand’s rapidly shrinking form.
She would have walked straight into my bullet.
Jack slams on the brakes, and I feel myself being thrust forwards and pressed hard into him...
~~~~~
‘This is okay,’ Sikand thought to himself. ‘This is a better road. All I need to do is to keep going.’
His pursuers would only become a threat if they could get alongside him. Even then, the chances of them getting themselves into a position to attack him were slim.
All he needed to do was keep following the river.
Eventually he would get clear of the congestion and crowded architecture of the city centre.
If necessary, he could continue right out into the countryside...
~~~~~
At the last possible moment, the jaywalking woman leaps out of the way of Jack’s squealing front tyre and we race back up to speed. What the hell was she thinking? More to the point: how the hell did Dad know?
Somehow I’ve managed to keep hold of my gun and I heft it in my right hand.
Jack senses my movements against his back. “Don’t, under any f*cking circumstances,” he yells, his face part turned to one side to make sure I can hear him, “...try to take a shot!”
“Why not?” I bark loudly back at him.
“You’re not good enough!” he yells. “Too much risk of collateral damage.”
He might be part-right – that Hungarian woman is lucky to still be alive – but I’m not endeared by his comment regarding my targeting skills.
Traffic is thinning out as we continue to hurtle, beneath the endless row of brightly lit buildings, which remain set high up above us, away from flood risk, atop an unbroken wall of stone which lines the right hand side of the road. This flood wall has occasional holes in it, presumably pedestrian access points. That random woman must’ve leapt out from one of them, but they’re nothing that Sikand could use. Unless he dumps the bike. Looks like he’s trapped between river and flood defences. At least for a while.
A few cars in front of us the road looks dark. No head or taillights visible. I watch as Sikand closes on the small convoy, and I know that he too will have registered the potential for a period of respite from constant weaving and overtaking.
“Keep up with him!” I yell.
Jack responds with a string of barely discernible, windblown, expletives which I imagine are a vigorous explanation of just how hard he’s being trying to do that all along.
Sikand drifts out to the left and overtakes the three cars.
Jack pulls over as well and opens up the bike. We’re only fractionally faster than our somewhat less steady adversary, and I watch as the other man maintains the gap.
He drifts slowly back toward the right side of the road.
I heft myself upright on the pillion, lean slightly to the right so that Jack’s hair is billowing onto the left hand side of my face, and wait for the target to emerge from behind my comrades head.
Here comes Sikand.
Slowly drifting across into the proper lane.
In the far distance I can see more taillights appearing as we speed toward the next gaggle of traffic.
We have a few seconds at most.
I raise my gun arm.
“DON’T DO IT!” yells Jack.
“I love you,” whispers Dad. “See you soon.”
That sounds promising.
~~~~~
Sikand accelerated as fast as he dared into the open stretch of road, and let the bike drift gently back onto the right side. He could see the headlight of his pursuers shining brightly in the vibrating wing mirror.
Whoever was riding that machine was very skilled. More skilled than he was. If he got into open countryside he wondered if he would be able to keep ahead of them. A better option would be to draw them in at high speed, wait till they were close, then slam on the brakes. He could easily draw his weapon and get off two shots toward them as they overshot and had to turn back to him.
He should look for another opportunity like this one had been. A longer stretch of traffic-free roadway. He’d do it as soon as he was clear of the endless flood wall, which currently blocked any exit away from the river. Once he ended up positioned behind his pursuers, he’d need options to blast off in a new direction. Not back toward the city again.
Taillights appeared out of the darkness.
Another small gaggle of cars that he’d need to...
~~~~~
I pull the trigger and my Browning coughs once in obedient response. The sudden rush of adrenalin coursing though my veins makes time seem to slow down around me.
I feel the slamming push of recoil driving the pistol backwards, and see the flare of flame spitting from the silenced muzzle.
Sikand continues to drift obediently across on his gentle lateral trajectory.
My bullet will arrive there soon.
~~~~~
The sudden and unexpected punch between his shoulder blades smacked Azat Sikand forwards onto a suddenly wet-smeared, blood red, dashboard and he choked in surprise as an explosion of searing pain ripped instantly across his entire upper body.
The bike jerked left, as the feeling in his arms vanished, and he sensed his throttle hand twisting uncontrollably, driving the bike’s engine note up into a howling banshee scream.
Glancing down, he stared incredulously at a gaping red hole which had erupted from the front of his tee-shirt.
~~~~~
“WHAT THE...!” shouts Jack.
Sikand lurches forwards.
Perfect.
The bike underneath us jerks to the left. “JESUS...!” yells Jack. We jerk right. At this speed I get the sense that he’s rapidly losing control.
In front of us, Sikand’s machine veers violently to the left, and I hear its engine note spring up into an ear-bending howl as it shoots sideways toward the river...
~~~~~
Jack wrestled the handlebars.
His f*cking lunatic passenger has taken a shot, and the barking cough of the gun, right next to his earhole, naturally made him flinch. Which would have been okay if they were bumbling along at a comfortable speed, but they weren’t bumbling along, and in less than a heartbeat, the bike has been thrown from being a finely balanced missile into a heavy, swinging, high-speed pendulum...
“FUUUUCCCCKKKK!” he yelled pointlessly, as the oscillations continued to hurl him violently from side to side.
~~~~~
This doesn’t feel too promising.
Even though Jack’s let off the gas, the bike is flinging itself from side to side as he struggles to get it back into balance.
I’m probably not helping; hanging on as I am, one-handed, with the added inconvenience of Sikand’s heavy rucksack swinging from side to side on my back, and my gun arm flailing around like I’m some bull-riding rodeo cowboy.
As we swing to the right, I see the other motorbike jump up into the air as it hits the far kerb, travelling at full speed. It flies through the air for a second, twisting slightly as it crosses the short stretch of pavement and then it slams into the top of the iron guardrails in a shower of sparks.
Sikand was still astride it when it hit. His legs were still on either side.
A bloody and vaguely human looking piece of flesh drops to the ground beneath the impact point, and beyond it the bike and the remains of its rider tumble out into space, separating from each other as a pair of ragged, broken, darker shadows hurtling out and inevitably downwards toward the gloomy waters of the wide river.
~~~~~
Sikand’s bike has flung itself into the top of the fence with an almighty crash, and then continued forwards, spinning violently, out over the river. Jack could see the seemingly lifeless form of his target tumbling away from it.
The bike underneath him threw itself to the right again, but this time he was just a fraction of a second too slow to catch it.
He’d been too busy watching the other crash unfolding in front of him.
The front wheel jammed sideways, and momentum started to lift the back wheel off the ground.
There was going to be a crash here too.
He just knew it.
“Oh... SHIT...!” he yelled, as the back of the bike flipped upwards.
~~~~~
I feel the pillion seat pitching and twisting as it rises beneath me.
The grab handle feels lighter and suddenly presses itself into my palm.
I’m not letting go...
Jack vanishes from in front of me, as he’s flung forward over the handlebars, and I watch in fascination as the headlamp pans downwards to illuminate the rapidly passing tarmac that I’m now, strangely, looking down upon.
I’m still not letting go...
Not of the bike.
Nor of my gun.
The bike flips over in midair and for a few short moments we’re completely inverted. Then the engine dies, plunging me into sudden eery silence.
A huge splash from somewhere over the river announces that Sikand must have reached his final, watery, resting place and I can’t help but grin as I’m hurled through three hundred and sixty degrees toward what might well be my own rock solid one.
But by some miracle, the bike hits the ground rear wheel first, sideways on, and I decide that now might be a good time to abandon ship and I release my limpet-like grip and feel myself suddenly airborne...
The bike is sliding along the road, in a spray of sparks, in front of me.
I am flying along, backwards, fractionally in front of it.
I brace myself for impact.
Which comes quickly.
I land, backpack first, onto the tarmac and am thrown into a helpless, tumbling, roll.
~~~~~