Andy Mcdermott - Temple of the Gods

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 lethal plunge to the tracks below—

One hand caught a protruding section of the air-conditioning machinery set into the end of the roof. He jerked to a halt, crying out as his shoulder joint crackled.

Brakes squealing, the shinkansen dropped below a hundred miles per hour, sixty, thirty. A final shrill, and it lurched to a standstill on a concrete flyover above the surrounding countryside. Eddie painfully dragged himself back on to the roof and started a staggering run towards the head of the train, looking for another access hatch. He had to get back inside before Scarber and her remaining goon found the statues…

Scarber didn’t need the update from her man Jun to know that something had gone seriously wrong; the sudden braking that threw her to the floor of the first-class car had been clue enough. Any stoppage of a bullet train was considered an emergency by the authorities, and with at least two corpses aboard and clear evidence of a gunfight there would be a massive police presence very shortly. It was time to bug out.

But there was something she had to do first. ‘Never mind that,’ she told Jun as he started explaining where the Englishman had gone. ‘We’ve got to find the statues. You saw the bag Chase had when he boarded — it must be somewhere forward of here. Find it, then evac the train.’

Jun nodded. ‘Where do we meet?’

Scarber looked through a window. There was nothing visible in the darkness outside; the train had stopped somewhere between the towns along Japan’s south coast. ‘Hell if I know. Just get the statues, then once you’re off the train call me — we’ll rendezvous when I’ve got a GPS fix.’

‘Okay. What about you?’

‘Never mind about me, just get the bag. Go on!’

Jun turned and jogged from the carriage. Scarber raised her recovered and reloaded gun and fired three shots at the nearest window, splintering the toughened glass.

The other carriages were scenes of confusion and rising concern. The shinkansen were renowned for their efficiency and safety; an emergency stop far from a station was almost unheard of. The train’s staff were making their way through each coach in turn, trying to reassure the passengers that the delay was only temporary, the problem would soon be solved, and they would be moving again as quickly as possible.

Jun pushed through the worried commuters, eyes sweeping from side to side as he searched the luggage racks. Chase had boarded the train carrying a nondescript black holdall, and a couple of passengers had already protested when he examined what turned out to be false positives. But he was running out of time to worry about raising suspicion; the operation had already gone to hell, and he wanted to get out of the confines of the train as quickly as possible.

He spied another black bag on the luggage rack. The fact that nobody was sitting in the seats immediately beneath it made it a likely prospect. None of the passengers nearby paid him any attention as he took it from the rack, more concerned with questioning the guard about the delay. He unzipped the holdall. Inside was a polycarbonate case. He opened it — and smiled.

Three crude statuettes of purple stone gazed dumbly back at him. Why they were important, he didn’t know, or care. His superiors wanted them, and that was all that mattered. He closed the case, refastened the bag, then squeezed back down the aisle.

The door to the boarding compartment slid open and he went through. Those to the connecting passage were push-button operated rather than fully automatic, so he tapped the control and waited for them to hiss apart—

An arm locked round his throat from behind, pinning him in a brutal chokehold as a clenched fist pounded paralysingly into his kidneys. A voice growled in his ear: ‘I think that’s my bag.’

The fist rose to his head, opened, clamped round his face—

There was a horrible crackling snap as Eddie twisted hard and broke the man’s neck. He let the limp body drop, ignoring the helpless choking gurgles from the agent’s crushed windpipe as he took the SD9 from inside his jacket, then collected the bag before moving at speed into the next carriage.

He headed for the first-class coaches. The body would soon be discovered, so he had to get off the train as quickly as possible. But he also had to find Scarber.

One way or another, she was going to give him answers.

He reached car number ten, immediately noticing a breeze as the sliding door opened. A window had been smashed. Scarber’s escape route. He hurried to it, gun at the ready. The train was on a long viaduct over a bowl of farmland. The lights of towns shimmered in the distance ahead and behind, but he was searching for something nearer…

Movement on the tracks, a scurrying figure picked out by the glow from inside the train. Scarber. Eddie jumped down and ran after her. She was crossing the other line, heading for the broad concrete maintenance path along the viaduct’s edge.

He followed, closing quickly. He would catch up well before the end of the bridge, leaving her with nowhere to run.

Which meant she would fight. The former agent wouldn’t give up easily.

He passed the shinkansen ’s streamlined nose, now only a hundred metres behind her. Tough and resourceful Scarber might be, but she was a decade older than Eddie, and a chain-smoker to boot. Fifty metres. With the rumble of the train’s motors fading behind her, she would soon hear him…

Forty metres — and Scarber looked back.

Eddie dropped the bag, taking careful aim as the woman spun and raised her gun. He couldn’t risk killing her, not yet.

Scarber had no such restraints. She fired three rapid shots. Bullets cracked against the concrete, closer to him each time—

Eddie pulled the trigger. One shot, but it was all he needed. Scarber shrieked and staggered, dropping her gun and clapping her left hand to her right shoulder.

Keeping the SD9 fixed on her, he ran the rest of the way. ‘You fucking little shit !’ Scarber hissed.

He kicked her gun away. ‘You’ll live — if you tell me who you’re working for. Otherwise I’ll shoot you right here.’

Her voice became tremulous. ‘You’d shoot a defenceless woman?’

Eddie almost laughed. ‘Defenceless? You just tried to fucking kill me!’

The tremor disappeared. ‘No, I didn’t think you’d buy that.’ She screwed up her face in pain, looking down at her injured arm. ‘All right. But do I have your word that you’ll let me go if I tell you?’

‘Yeah. I just want to know who wants me and Nina dead.’ Behind her, a new light appeared in the far distance — another bullet train, coming the other way. The service path was wide enough for them to keep safely clear, though he expected it would be horribly loud. ‘Think we should move back a bit first, mind.’ He retreated a couple of steps.

Scarber followed, coming closer to him. ‘There are two people. One of them is only interested in seeing your wife dead — you’re not even on his radar. It’s the other who has a personal grievance.’

‘Who?’

‘Victor Dalton.’

The name sent a shock running through him. Victor Dalton — the ex-President of the United States. The man who two years earlier had tried to have Eddie and Nina killed to cover up his involvement in a conspiracy, and in return had been forced to resign from office in utter humiliation when a video of him having sex with Eddie’s ex-wife Sophia Blackwood hit the Internet.