Dan Abnett - Border Princes

James vaulted the moving rail and dropped.

Dozens of people screamed.

Jack put down the cordless slowly. He paused for a moment.

‘Jack?’ asked Toshiko, rising from her seat. ‘Jack, what’s the matter?’

‘Was that Gwen?’ Owen asked.

‘Jack?’

Jack turned to face them. ‘You know,’ he began quietly, ‘you know how this all seemed terribly, you know, wonky?’

Owen nodded. Toshiko just stared.

‘Well, you won’t believe what Gwen just said to me,’ said Jack.

He was flying, arms out, falling. Someone was screaming in a really piercing way.

He landed. He landed with legs coiled like springs to cushion the impact. He didn’t even fall or stumble. As soon as he was down, he sprang forwards and started running again.

A pathway opened in the crowd in front of him, Terrified, horrified faces recoiled out of his way.

More screams rang out in his wake. He didn’t need to look back to know that the blond man and the dark-haired man had followed his example and thrown themselves off the escalator.

They would be coming. Fast now, fast, and making no sound.

He could see the entrance of the shopping centre ahead. Oblivious crowds washed in and out, only just beginning to ripple as they realised something was up. The entrance itself was two pairs of automatic glass doors framed by side panels of floor-length glass.

There were too many people, too many people in his path. Some were too slow getting out of his way; others were too scared or confused. One young guy simply ducked down and James sailed over him.

There was no time to stop, no time to even slow down. The main doorways were too thick with people.

James raised his hands in front of his face in a protective cross. He accelerated. He came through one of the side panels in a splash of shattering glass. Shattering strengthened glass. Fragments flew in all directions, and the main weight of the glass panel collapsed like a sheet of dislodged ice, cascading across the pavement in a glittering, crashing torrent.

Yet more screams and hysterics. Shoppers fled in panic. James didn’t stop. The road ahead was two strides away, heavy with crawling traffic.

He didn’t break stride. He took off. Bang ! off the roof of a minicab. Bang ! off the bonnet of a Mini. Three powerful skips took him across to the far side of the road.

Behind him, Mr Dine exited the shopping centre through the hole in the glass panel James had made.

Mr Lowe came out a second later through the main doors, slamming pedestrians aside like a charging bull. People tumbled out of his way, some struck so hard they would require medical attention. One girl actually cartwheeled on her way to colliding with a heavy rubbish bin.

Though Mr Dine had exited the shopping centre first, Mr Lowe’s ruthless drive put him in the lead. He flew out across the traffic, crunching in the roof of an Audi and then vaulting over the high back of a minibus. His gymnastics, his sheer grace, would have scored him maximum points at any Olympics. No one really saw it because he had become just a blur by then.

He landed on the far pavement, his impact cracking the expensive zigzag paving stones.

Mr Dine landed beside him. There was a terrible commotion of voices and shouting and car horns all around them. They each scanned the crowd. They looked at one another.

There was no sign of James.

Mr Dine looked at the scrum of injured people outside the Mall entrance.

‘That was unnecessary,’ he said.

‘It was appropriate. Only the Principal matters,’ Mr Lowe replied.

Thirty yards east of them, the passengers of a bendy-bus erupted in alarm. A man was clinging to the outside of the moving vehicle, looking in at them through the window. The driver began to slow the bus as he heard the ripple of panic behind him.

James gazed in at the alarmed passengers. So much agitation, so much fear. As the bus slowed, he let go of the hand-and toe-holds he had dug in its metal skin.

He landed on his feet and used the bus’s momentum to propel his onward flight.

They were behind him still, both of them. He could taste it.

He crossed the road again, weaving through the moving traffic, and ran down an underpass. He slowed. He was barely panting.

He took out his mobile.

‘How could she not know?’ Owen demanded.

Jack shrugged. ‘How could she not? How?’

‘Just take it easy,’ Jack suggested.

‘I will not. I bloody well will not!’

‘Then go and sit over there where I can’t hear you,’ said Jack.

‘I’m having trouble understanding this too,’ said Toshiko.

‘Join the club,’ Jack snapped.

‘Something hot,’ Ianto called. They crossed to the station he was monitoring.

‘Show me,’ Jack said.

‘Some kind of incident at the Capitol Mall,’ Ianto said. ‘Reports of property damage, injuries. Some kind of foot pursuit. Some guys apparently leapt off a moving escalator.’

Jack studied the screen. ‘Not much to go on. Could just be-’

His phone rang.

‘This is Jack.’

‘Jack, it’s James.’

Jack hesitated before answering. He pointed to Ianto and then at his phone. Ianto nodded and started to tap at the keyboard.

‘Jack, are you there?’

‘Yeah, James. We were worried about you. Where a-’

‘Jack, listen to me. Something’s going on. Something wrong.’

‘James, what do you-’

‘Just listen. I haven’t got much time to talk. They’re after me.’

‘Who’s after you, James?’

‘The men. For Christ’s sake, Jack, help me. I’m going crazy here. Talk to Owen. Owen can tell you about it. Tell him I said it was OK to tell you.’

‘James,’ said Jack carefully. ‘I think I already know. Owen didn’t need to tell me.’

There was a long silence.

‘Oh,’ said James. ‘OK. That’s good, then. I trust you, Jack. I trust you.’

‘Glad to hear it. What kind of trouble are we talking? Scale of one to ten?’

‘Twenty-seven, you idiot! Please!’

The line muffled for a moment. There were some indistinct noises.

‘James? James, are you there?’

‘Jack, they’re coming! They’re-’

‘CALL ENDED’ read the screen of Jack’s phone.

‘Did you get it?’ Jack asked. ‘Please tell me you got it.’

Ianto nodded. ‘GPS is just punching it up. Phone location…’ He looked at Jack. ‘Phone location two hundred and thirty-three yards south of that Mall.’

‘I’ll start the car,’ said Owen.

The dead centre of Cardiff: gleaming shops and boutique arcades, and bold new developments overlapping with the last relics of the City’s poorer past. Saturday afternoon, a weak sun smiling, the town crawling with the retail-hungry and the credit card debt-addicted.

The black SUV ploughed through the inner-city traffic, anonymous as a storm cloud.

They pulled up on double yellow lines and got out. Jack, Toshiko and Owen.

‘Ianto?’ Jack asked into his Bluetooth.

‘Hearing you.’

‘Fix?’

‘You’re right on it.’

Jack looked around at the other two. ‘Boiled egg,’ he said.

Side by side, they began to run.

James looked up and down the tiled cavity of the underpass. He stuffed his phone back into his pocket. No signal.

Traffic thumped by overhead. He took a step towards the east end of the underpass.

The man in dark jeans appeared, walking slowly down the slope towards him. James switched back. The blond man in the suit came down the steps to the west.

James tried to back away from both advancing figures, a feat he quickly realised was technically impossible.

He held out his palms in either direction.

‘That’s far enough!’ he barked. His voice echoed along the little tunnel.