Just as Zakaria ducked his head, an ear-splitting boom reverberated through the van, after which two more blasts rocked the vehicle in quick succession. When Zakaria looked up he saw three neat holes punched through the bulletproof glass windscreen and passenger window. Chloe, now hyperventilating, was in a state of terrified catatonia, and had been doused with a glistening shower of glass fragments.
‘Lovely … she’s using slugs,’ Zakaria grumbled, his hard-featured face wrung into a tight grimace of both wrath and consternation.
He swerved to the left, causing a crunching impact as he sideswiped the vehicle travelling next to him. An impotently furious horn blared out shock and rage, but the sound was promptly engulfed by the combat shotgun thundering again, this time punching out four shots in rapid succession. These, however, hit the heavily armoured sides of the van, and despite the force of the projectiles they did not penetrate it.
Wailing sirens in the distance were closing in from all sides; the police had now joined in the chase. Zakaria shook his head, growled under his breath and then ramped the vehicle up onto the curb, smashing over a fire hydrant, which arced a white, frothing plume of water twenty feet into the air, while panicking pedestrians screamed and dived out of the way as the van careened along the sidewalk at breakneck speed. The shrill chorus of sirens now screamed in surround sound, the layered banshee howls an aural deluge that soaked every street and saturated every alley; Zakaria had just become the most wanted criminal in New York City.
Glancing in his side mirror, he saw the Ducati tearing through the maelstrom of chaos in his wake, gaining on him with extreme rapidity. The two Husqvarnas were also hot on his heels.
‘Mothra, you’re in deep trouble,’ the voice from the walkie-talkie declared. ‘The police radios are going mad; every unit in the city is after you, and I mean every unit. You need to hit a hard right soon … here, coming up now.’
Zakaria stomped on the brake pedal and yanked up the handbrake, hurling the van with such near-capsizing violence through the turn that the teens in the back were flung against the wall. Keeping the accelerator floored, he aimed straight for a glass-walled boutique on the corner of the intersection toward which he was hurtling. The van ploughed through a display window, demolishing the carefully arranged fashion display and destroying the mannequins, and barrelled through the store as customers scattered and dived in a blind panic. Inside the van the teenagers screamed, but Zakaria held the steering wheel steady, his jaw set tight. After a second of tempestuous chaos the van erupted from the plate glass on the other side of the store, dry-drenching everything in a twenty-foot radius in a shower of glass shards. Zakaria swung the van hard to his right, grunting as he steamrolled a street sign with a sharp bang.
Despite Zakaria’s madcap manoeuvring the bikes were still on him, and as another burst of small arms fire ripped with homicidal hunger across the back of the van, he screamed with enough vociferousness at Chloe to yank her out of her state of terror-induced paralysis, and she managed to press the talk button on the walkie talkie.
‘Godzilla! Route, damn you, route!’
‘Bad news, Mothra. You’re cut off on all exits. The only way out is through.’
‘No! That’s the only way?!’
Before waiting for the answer to this question, Zakaria gunned it and hooked another suicidal turn, cutting across two lanes of oncoming traffic to duck into a narrow side street.
‘There’s no other way. I’ve just seen two Huntsmen Humvees pull U-turns, reacting immediately to your last evasive manoeuvre. I don’t know how, but there must be a tracker on your van.’
‘Shit! Damn it, shit!
Grimacing and growling, Zakaria blasted through the narrow street at speed. The three motorcycles were hard on his tail, and now he also had three Humvees ahead with which to contend. Still, this was no time to give in; the big man had a constitution of titanium and was no stranger to keeping his cool under situations of extreme pressure. The rescue mission was not going as smoothly as he’d hoped, but he wasn’t one to whine or complain, not ever. There was only action and reaction, and swift, improvised adjustments to failed plans and changed circumstances; this philosophy had seen him safely through many centuries of battles and combat. Drawing a deep breath of air into his lungs and holding it there, he forced himself to maintain his composure.
‘Mothra,’ the voice on the walkie-talkie said, ‘the Huntsmen ahead have RPGs and heavy machine guns. We must use the payload. There is no other way.’
Zakaria nodded grimly and gritted his teeth. He gave Chloe a nod, and she pressed the talk button.
‘Okay Godzilla,’ he growled. ‘Bring it in.’
‘I will. Take the next right, then right again after that. The chopper will take out the Humvee, and you’ll have a clear path to freedom … if you can get rid of the bikes.’
Zakaria stomped hard on the brakes before making the turn. He craned his neck to try to catch a glimpse of the sky and noticed that no aircraft was in sight. Despite his centuries of battle experience, panic began to lick its tongues of searing flame across his pyre-bound feet.
‘Where’s the fucking chopper?!’ he roared, spittle flying from
