Darren Lemke - Gemini Man

Nope, no tourists immediately ahead of him, and no other bikers, probably because riding on the wall was illegal. Well, they’d just have to add that to his rap sheet, Henry thought. Much farther on, where the wall made a kind of dogleg to the left, he saw a set of stone stairs coming up from the lower level. The Enduro could take them—it would be a rough ride but the bike could handle it. All he had to do was hang on.

He looked over his shoulder and then slowed to a stop so he could scan the traffic on the road in both directions. Had he finally lost the arrogant little son of a—

Nope, no such luck. Henry heard the sound of another motorcycle engine approaching quickly and he was pretty sure it wasn’t the pissed-off Enduro owner coming after him on a borrowed ride. The engine was growing louder but he couldn’t quite pin down the direction—

Abruptly, something flew at him on his left. Henry shot at it by reflex, not recognizing it as a motorcycle helmet until afterwards. If Cartagena had a helmet law, he’d just violated it twice over. As he stuck the Glock back in his waistband, he heard the engine rev again; in the next moment, he saw the kid bouncing up the stone steps on a stolen Honda Enduro of his own.

Henry didn’t wait to see if the son of a bitch stayed in the saddle. He pulled the handlebars in a sharp turn and yanked the throttle to make the bike pivot on its rear wheel, and headed back the way he had come. A bullet whizzed past his left ear and he accelerated, crouching low over the handlebars, keeping one eye on the road and the other on Junior Hitman’s reflection in the left-hand mirror.

He zoomed down the incline, pulled a hard left and shot across two lanes of traffic in an effort to put as many vehicles as possible between himself and the kid with his face. Just as he swerved around a brightly colored bus, he caught a glimpse of himself in one of his side mirrors. His face was covered with plaster dust, dirt, and streaks of blood, a lot of it from the gash on his cheek.

Good God, I look more like a homicidal maniac than the guy who’s actually trying to kill me, Henry thought. No wonder the guy he’d stolen the bike from had seemed scared. He probably thought he’d been jacked by a psycho killer hurrying to his next mass murder.

Another bullet zipped past on his left side, so close Henry thought he smelled gunpowder. He worked the Glock out of his waistband, wrapped his arm around his body and returned fire. Junior Hitman gave a jerk as a round hit him in the ribs but it didn’t send up a spray of blood or throw him off the bike, or even loosen his goddam baseball cap—the thing must have been superglued to his head. Although judging from his expression in the side mirror, it had pissed him off.

He was wearing Kevlar, of course, that was no surprise. But the impact of the round should have punched him right out of the saddle. Junior Hitman was one tough little bastard. Henry stuck the Glock back in his waistband and cut across two lanes of traffic with the kid still on his tail.

He made a sharp turn into another narrow alley, flying past an enormous colorful painting of a curvy lady that ran the length of a building. Henry turned again, zipped diagonally across a square, sending a flock of pigeons into startled flight, and into another street barely wide enough for the motorcycle to pass through before coming out on a main road.

Contemporary urban Cartagena was on his right now; after brightly colored Old Town, the ultra-modern skyline was jarring, a shock to the eye. Henry drew his sidearm again, tried another shot, and discovered he was out. Dammit, he thought, dumping the empty magazine. He put the pistol back in his waistband so he could get a fresh magazine out of his pocket and reload, while Junior went on taking potshots at him.

He stuck the magazine into his waistband and managed to get it into the Glock one-handed without dropping either of them or losing anything down his trousers. Baron had once bet him a hundred bucks he’d never be able to do that under fire. If he actually made it out of this with his head intact, Henry was going to enjoy telling him he was wrong. Although he should probably wait to collect on that bet until after he bought Baron a new house. Another shot flew past his shoulder; Henry checked his mirrors but Junior Hitman was gone.

Except he couldn’t be—the goddam bullets were still coming and Henry could hear the roar of the bike behind him. He looked around frantically, checked the mirrors again. For a moment, he had an absurd mental image of Junior Hitman leaping the Enduro from one rooftop to another. From all-terrain to no terrain, he thought, swerving around a bus. Finally he caught a glimpse of the other bike’s front tire in the right side mirror—but not on the road. Junior was speeding along the top of a wall barely wide enough to accommodate the bike’s wheels.

Henry bared his teeth in a grim smile. It figured; the kid just couldn’t resist showing off while making a kill. The problem was, the end of the wall was twenty feet ahead and it was at least ten feet off the ground—even an Enduro couldn’t take a drop like that and keep rolling. Unless Junior Hitman could sprout wings, his pièce de résistance was going to end in pieces.

Now he heard police sirens and they sounded awfully close. Maybe Junior Hitman would try to impress them, too. As if the kid had caught something of Henry’s thoughts, Junior suddenly laid the bike down on its side while gunning the throttle. The bike skidded off the wall without him and into the air, flying straight toward Henry.

Henry accelerated and passed a display of an old cannon half a second before Junior Hitman’s stolen Enduro hit it and burst into flames. Yeah, the cops were going to be very impressed by that trick, Henry thought as the sirens screamed to a stop behind him. He hit the brakes hard and turned to watch.

Two motorcycle cops had just pulled up in front of the kid, who was standing on the wall and staring at Henry with obvious fury. This should be good, Henry thought, especially if the kid tried to sell them a story about having to lay it down to save it. But before the cops could draw their guns, Junior Hitman leaped down from the wall and banged their heads together, knocking them out. Then he grabbed up one of their bikes—another Honda Enduro. Apparently this was the bike of choice in Cartagena. Henry yanked hard on the throttle and got the hell out of there.

He headed away from the main road and back into the narrow streets of Old Town but the kid stuck with him all the way. If he couldn’t lose him, Henry thought, he’d just have to knock him off the damned bike. One shot hadn’t done it but five or six might.

Henry sped over a wood bridge well ahead of Junior Hitman, startling people walking on either side. He skidded to a stop, facing the way he had come, drew the Glock, and waited. A second later, the police bike appeared. Henry opened fire, sending everyone on the bridge into a shrieking panic as they ran or dropped to the ground, arms covering their heads.

Junior Hitman reared the bike up on its back wheel, practically dancing as he dodged the bullets—another miss. Henry took off again. The mirror on the left showed the kid trying to draw a bead on him, then giving up and gunning the bike forward as people ran for cover again.

Henry followed the road and found himself back on the highway with a stretch of sea wall on his left. This one was wider but Henry couldn’t see any way to get up on it. He was looking around for something else when his right-hand mirror disintegrated in a burst of glass and cheap plastic. He ducked as low as he could and waited for something else to blow apart, hoping it wouldn’t be his head.