to its case, pudgy fingers fumbling with the tiny plastic sliver. They passed a window—
‘Oi!’ Eddie suddenly yelled, bogus accent gone as he whirled to face one of his escorts. ‘Get your fucking hands off me!’
The man froze, startled . . .
And Eddie hurled him bodily through the window.
7
The Malay screamed as he plummeted to the concrete amongst shattered glass and the clattering slats of the blind. He landed with a heavy thump, bruised but alive.
Eddie spun to face the other man – and took a hard punch that sent him crashing against a desk, scattering papers. Kit hit the goon in the jaw, knocking him back, but the thick-necked man straightened immediately and lunged at him.
Recovering, Eddie saw West grab a black object. Fear surged through him –
The Malay swung Kit round, slamming him into Eddie just as the Englishman started after West. Both men tumbled to the floor. The bodyguard tried to stamp on Kit’s head, but the Indian jerked away in time to avoid all but a glancing blow to the side of his face.
Eddie used a chair to haul himself to his feet, then swept it up and smashed it against the bodyguard’s skull. The man cried out, reeling. Eddie tried to swing again, but the piece of cheap office furniture fell apart in his hands, leaving him holding only the backrest. He threw it at the man’s face, then kneed the staggering figure in the groin.
The Malay lurched backwards into one of the shelving racks. It toppled over, knocking him to the floor beneath it – and dropping dozens of heavy box files on to Kit. He managed to protect his face, but still took several painful hits.
West was gone, the other door slamming shut. Eddie tried to pull Kit out from under the collapsed shelves. ‘No, go after him!’ Kit groaned. ‘Get the memory card!’
Eddie reluctantly let go and ran to the door. As he expected, it was locked. A couple of kicks took care of that. The room beyond was a small storeroom, a fire door swinging open in the back wall. He rushed to it and looked out into the rain. Metal steps led down to ground level.
No sign of West, but considering his bulk he couldn’t have got far. Eddie clanged down the stairs. If West had gone round to the front of the cabin, he would have been seen by the Singaporean officers. He must have headed deeper into the port. Which way, though? The towering maze of containers, stacked as many as five high, rose just yards away like a giant child’s building blocks. He listened for footsteps, but heard nothing. Not, he was reluctantly forced to admit, that he could have picked much out through the hiss of rain and rumble of distant machinery; years of exposure to gunshots and other loud noises had permanently affected his hearing.
He ran to a container and jumped to grab the edge of its roof, pulling himself up. The containers to each side were stacked two high; he leapt again and scrambled on top of one, then pounded along its forty-foot length to jump up once more. He was now over twenty-five feet above the ground, giving him more of a chance of spotting West – he hoped.
The containers were arranged in long blocks, six wide, with roadways between them housing the tracks for the gangling cranes. The nearest was to his left; he looked down into it. Nobody there. He hurried across to the right, rounding a gaping hole where several containers had been plucked from the tier. The other roadway was considerably wider, with room for containers to be lowered on to flatbed trailers. The great yellow crane spanning the block along which he was running was ahead, slowly lowering a container towards a waiting truck.
But the huge machine wasn’t what caught his attention. Instead, it was a rotund figure a hundred yards away, shouting into a walkie-talkie as he ran.
A look ahead told Eddie where he was going. The floodlit, slab-like sides of cargo ships rose above the containers. The waterfront.
But West wasn’t going to board a ship. He was trying to dispose of the memory card. On the ground, even in the dockland sprawl, the Singaporean authorities could use CCTV and dogs to retrace his steps and eventually find it. But in the water, amongst the currents and traffic and floating garbage, the tiny plastic chip would be lost for ever.
‘Not a fucking chance,’ Eddie muttered as he set off at a run. He could easily catch up with West on the ground – but first had to get down there.
He was too high up to risk dropping to the concrete. But doubling back and descending that way would cost him too much time. He needed an intermediate step . . .
The crane.
He ran at it, the driver in his elevated cabin reacting in surprise at the sight of the interloper, then hurriedly hitting the emergency stop. The container jolted to a halt above the trailer—
Eddie made a running jump, crossing the gap and landing with a bang on the container roof eight feet below. He ran along the container’s length, vaulted the end of the spreader and thumped down on his backside on the truck’s roof to slide off and drop the last nine feet to the ground.
The impact jarred his joints. He rolled with a pained grunt and jumped up. The startled truck driver threw open the cab door and yelled in Chinese, but Eddie was already running after West.
The fat man disappeared round a corner. Eddie pushed harder, reaching the corner of the container block just in time to see West make another turn about fifty yards ahead, still heading for the waterfront. Feet splashing through puddles, Eddie followed. At the turn he saw that he had closed the distance again, West only forty yards away. He would be able to tackle him well short of the sea—
Lights came on behind him, his running shadow stretching ahead on the wet ground.
He looked back – and saw a forklift bearing down on him.
Eddie jinked to one side of the roadway. The forklift changed course, tracking him. West had called for help over the radio, and a dock worker had responded.
