‘I am not going anywhere on that island with a navigator who’s got no real idea of what he’s getting into,’ Dutch snapped, hands still raised in surrender. ‘And we both know there’s a truckload of drivers out there who’ve gone face to face with Long Tall Sally and worse, and they’d still give their eyeteeth for another chance.’ She jerked her head towards Harry. ‘This asshole would get us both killed, so if you want me in the Devil’s Run, find me a navigator with actual experience of the damn thing. No way they’re going to let him navigate with a broken finger.’
Wu’s mouth worked for several seconds before he managed to get any more words out. ‘A broken finger won’t keep him from navigating.’
‘He needs to be fit enough to take the wheel from me if anything happens to me,’ said Dutch. ‘It’s in the rules. The race authorities won’t even let him take part in the time-trials with a damaged hand.’
Wu’s gaze darted towards the driver, who nodded confirmation.
‘Fine,’ Wu hissed between gritted teeth. ‘But do anything like that again and I’ll gladly find myself another driver.’
‘Christ!’ shouted Harry, his expression incredulous. ‘You’re going to let her get away with this?’
Wu glared at him. ‘Be quiet, Mr Montrose.’
Dutch sat back and tried hard not to show her satisfaction.
Death Notice
They banished her to a couch in another corner of the cabin while the three men conferred amongst themselves for the rest of the short flight. The limousine driver bandaged Harry’s broken finger, Harry staring over at her all the while with eyes full of murder. But when they touched down at a small provincial airport, Dutch found herself less than surprised when Wu informed her that the limousine driver—whose name, she learned, was Nat—would be going with her the rest of the way to Japan.
‘Where are we now?’ asked Dutch, standing at the top of the boarding ladder. All she could see were a few rain-streaked buildings next to a short runway.
‘Odessa,’ said Nat, following her down.
She glanced back at the VTOL. The pilot had closed the door of the plane and was moving the boarding ladder out of the way. ‘What about Wu?’
‘He’s going somewhere else.’
Nat kept a careful eye on Dutch as he guided her across the concrete to a cargo plane that looked like Russian military surplus, Wu Changxing International displayed on its fuselage. She heard a roar of engines, and turned in time to see the VTOL lift up, its nose tipping back before it shot towards the clouds.
Apart from a couple of passenger seats welded to its interior walls, the cargo plane’s hold was empty. Nat picked up a shopping bag from a seat and handed it to her. She found it contained Levi’s, a white cotton T-shirt, underwear, a leather bike jacket and a pair of boots.
‘You shouldn’t have,’ she said dryly.
‘Couldn’t have you turning up at the time-trials wearing a prison uniform, now, could we?’
‘It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing anyone ever wore in the Devil’s Run,’ she said, staring around the empty hold. ‘How long until we get to Japan?’
‘Twelve hours.’ He stepped towards the cockpit door. ‘You’d better get comfortable, because we’ll be taking off straight away. If you need me, I’ll be up front with the pilot.’
He stepped through the door and pulled it shut, leaving her alone. Thanks a bunch, she thought. Even a fold-up cot would have been nice; it wasn’t like she’d had so much as a full night’s sleep.
She stripped off the prison uniform, balling it up and tossing it into a corner. As soon as she put on the Levi’s and T-shirt she felt better, like she’d grown a new skin. She belted in as the plane started to move. Once they were above the clouds, she folded down the arms of the seats on either side of her and stretched out, the leather jacket balled up for a pillow.
To her surprise, she fell into a long and dreamless sleep, and by the time she woke they were already in Japanese airspace and circling in for a landing at Narita International. She dragged herself over to a window and stared with groggy eyes down at the Shinjuku Line, a broad swathe of destruction several kilometres long that started from the shore before cutting diagonally through the city. It marked the path a Venomosaurus had taken before the Japanese military managed to beat it back into the sea.
* * *
A second manual-drive limousine waited for them outside the airport. Nat took its wheel, guiding them through Shinagawa before pulling to a stop outside a Hilton near the port. When he showed Dutch to her room, she found it had a view over the river and Tokyo’s Roppongi district.
After five years in a cell with Yara, pretty much everything looked like impossible luxury to Dutch. She even found a second shopping bag on the bed with more clothes, and beside it, a three-ring binder thick with paper. She flipped through the pages, finding it contained specifications for a Toyota four-wheeler modified for driving in the Devil’s Run.
She held it up where Nat could see it, then let it drop back onto the bed with a thud. ‘What the fuck is this?’
‘Specifications of the car you’ll be driving.’
She regarded him with horror. ‘You cannot be serious.’
‘Is there a problem with it? I’ve seen other racers drive vehicles same as that one on Teijouan. They’re rock-solid and built like tanks.’
‘Yeah, and how many of the people who drove them survived until the end of the race?’
Nat hesitated. ‘Well…’
‘Nobody ever outran a Kaiju in one of those things,’ said Dutch. ‘Speed and manoeuvrability matter a
