Quick Read online

  ‘Does it matter? I’ll start shooting when you start running.’

  ‘Of course. One, two, three.’ Yellow runs hard as Red swings the pistol towards the entrance and fires three times.

  Thud, thud thud. The bullets slam into the wall beside it and the police don’t show their faces. Red just wants them to stay back so Yellow can reach the vault room without having to contend with any gunfire, which is exactly what happens.

  Red glances at Black, who holds a fat roll of black velvet. That roll is the reason they’re here, it’s the key to reaching the goal they have spent the better part of a year striving for, a goal that is now within their grasp—as long as they can get out of here.

  They wait.

  Red glances at the vault room. Where the hell is Yellow? Why is this taking so long? They need to get moving. Red turns to Black. ‘See what’s taking so long. I’ll cover you.’ Black nods and moves off quickly as Red points and fires at the entrance three more times.

  Thud thud thud. The bullets slam into the wall beside it —

  Thwoomp. A fist-sized canister thumps into the carpet five metres away and rolls towards Red. He instantly thinks it’s an explosive and ducks behind the desk, hoping the thick wood will offer some protection from the blast.

  Cisss. There’s no explosion, just a long, thin hiss. Red peeks from behind the desk and takes in the white smoke that spews out of the canister.

  ‘Tear gas.’ He plunges his hands into a backpack, drags out a simple gas mask, pulls off the helmet and slides on the mask as white vapour fills the room. In an instant it’s as thick as pea soup. Those cops could sneak up on them and there would be no way to know until the cuffs were on. Red has to do something about it right away.

  Like shoot out a window.

  It seems like a good idea but it only seems that way. The problem is Red has no idea where the windows are because the smoke is so thick —

  A sliver of blue appears through the haze. It must be the sky. A moment later it’s gone. Red raises the pistol, aims where the sliver used to be and pulls the trigger.

  Crash. Glass shatters and there’s a roar of air as the gas is sucked through the now empty window pane. The mist clears fast, not a surprise when you’re dealing with heavy winds on the eighty-sixth floor.

  As the fog disappears Red turns and scans the office, gun up, finger tight on the trigger to make sure none of those cops have snuck up from behind —

  A single-barrel shotgun points at Red’s face. One of them snuck up from behind. Red’s pistol points at the chest of the officer who holds the weapon and wears a gas mask.

  ~ * ~

  ‘Oh jeeze.’

  The Hyundai crests a hump on the gravel road and catches air. The Australian sees the steering go light in the Frenchman’s hands as he corrects the vehicle’s trajectory mid-jump. It thumps back to earth, settles on its spongy suspension and speeds on.

  Man, they are booking. Billy’s eyes flick to the speedometer as it touches a hundred and sixty-five kilometres an hour. He looks up at the road —

  ‘Cow!’ Billy points to the left as a heifer casually ambles onto the road a hundred metres ahead.

  ‘Why are there cows? The road is for cars and the grass is for cows.’ It’s almost like Claude takes the animal’s appearance as a personal affront. He jams the palm of his hand into the steering wheel and sounds the horn. Instead of scaring the cow back onto the grass the startled bovine gallops across the road—straight into the Hyundai’s path.

  Billy’s hand grips the centre console and his right foot shoots out towards a brake pedal that was never built into the passenger’s footwell.

  Time slows.

  Well that’s it then.

  The Australian realises he will die in a car accident after all. He just never expected it would be beside an annoying Frenchman in a Korean hatchback in the middle of Malaysian farmland after hitting a large piece of stampeding livestock.

  Time speeds up.

  Instead of braking, Claude accelerates and delicately adjusts the steering wheel’s angle of attack. It shifts the vehicle’s attitude almost imperceptibly, but just enough so it now heads directly around the galloping cow, and he does it without unsettling the Hyundai’s spongy suspension, which, if not treated with kid gloves at this speed, could set the car fishtailing and cause it to flip and roll. In that moment Billy realises this Frenchman must have successfully completed an advanced driving course at some point because he knows exactly what he’s doing.

  The car whips past the animal with a metre to spare and the Frenchman shouts at it: ‘Get off the road you idiot!’

  Billy’s almost certain he can hear the animal moo a reply as it disappears in the rear-view. The Australian glances at the Frenchman with a new, and grudging, respect. Claude doesn’t meet his eye, just nods at something out the windscreen. ‘It’s close.’

  Billy turns and takes in the twin Petronas Towers that loom in the distance. They don’t seem that far away. Using the freeway wasn’t going to work because it took a circuitous route. Instead, they agreed to drive this more direct gravel back road. ‘What’s that?’ Billy points towards the top section of the left tower.

  ‘Merde. Whatever it is it can’t be good.’

  They watch as a stream of white smoke pours from the top of the building. At first blush Billy thinks it looks similar to the alarming column of smoke that poured from the World Trade Center after the first plane hit early that September morning. ‘Could it be a bomb?’

  ‘Only one way to find out.’ The Frenchman accelerates.

  ~ * ~

  Red’s finger is tight on the trigger of the weapon pointed at the cop’s chest. Conversely, the cop’s finger is tight on the trigger of the shotgun pointed at Red’s face.

  Now what?

  As the smoke clears, Red takes in the two cops directly behind the guy with the shotgun, both with weapons raised. ‘Get back or I shoot this guy.’

  The cop nods and his buddies fall back.

  Red watches them go. ‘Right back! Behind the wall!’

  The two cops retreat behind it.

  Okay, now what?

  Red can shoot this officer in the chest and is almost certain the worst thing that will happen to the guy will be a fist-sized bruise on one of his pecs. He’s wearing a bulky ballistic vest that will absorb the impact of the bullet nicely. The downside is that the cop could pull the shotgun’s trigger as he falls backwards and blow Red’s head off. Not the outcome Red is hoping for.

  A moment passes.

  There has to be another way —

  Thwump. The cop is knocked sideways and slumps to the ground, out cold.

  Yellow grins as he holds up a pistol in his right hand, the butt of which was used to send the cop off to the land of nod, then shows Red the large black duffel bag he retrieved from the vault room in his left hand. ‘Got it!’ Black is directly behind him. Both wear gas masks.

  ‘Took your sweet time.’ Red grabs the shotgun from the cop’s hands and they shuffle behind the upturned wooden desk once gain. Directly behind them is a row of large windows, one already shattered from when Red cleared the mist. They quickly trade gas masks for their helmets.

  Anxious, Black turns to Red. ‘So, we’re really doing this?’

  ‘Unless you have a better idea.’

  Black’s silence is all the answer Red needs.

  ‘Just remember what you learned and it’ll be fine.’

  Yellow and Black nod hesitantly as Red unzips the duffel bag and plunges a hand inside. ‘We go in fifteen seconds.’

  ~ * ~

  Billy can see the smoke that was streaming from the Petronas Towers has now dissipated. He then loses sight of the buildings as the Hyundai enters a series of tight switchbacks that carve a steep route up a small mountain. The car turns a corner and a dirt bike puffing black exhaust trundles along the middle of the road, the rider an elderly gentleman wearing nothing but yellow sh
orts, his skin wrinkled and tanned from decades of exposure to the Kuala Lumpur sun.

  Claude sees the old guy, plays the steering wheel gently, dabs the brakes lightly, keeps the engine revs in the sweet spot and never loses momentum as they sweep past. As much as Billy hates to admit it, the guy is driving the hatchback as fast as anyone could. He’s extremely quick.

  As the Hyundai crests the apex of the mountain and heads down the other side, the towers are visible again, and appear to be much closer than even moments before. Perhaps it’s just the fact that they are now higher but Billy feels like he can almost reach out and touch them.

  ‘Jesus!’ Billy watches three black dots fall from the top of the building.

  Flap flap flap. A parachute bursts open from each of them.

  Claude looks on, intrigued. ‘You think it’s them?

  ‘Three parachutes, three champions. Stop the car. If we’re in separate vehicles we can each follow one of them.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just stop the car.’

  The Frenchman hits the brakes and the vehicle skids to a halt, gravel crunching under its tyres. ‘Why am I doing this?’

  Billy’s eyes flick to the rear-view mirror. Approaching the Hyundai is the old guy on the dirt bike, the one they just passed. In one smooth movement the Australian pushes the door open, swings out of the vehicle and holds up a hand.

  The dirt bike slides to a halt a few metres in front of him. Billy flashes a wide smile then reaches into his pocket, extracts his wallet, flips it open and drags out a chunk of the walking around money he was given by Marcellus. ‘I want to buy your bike.’

  The old guy leans forward, visibly shocked by such a large wad of cash.

  Billy turns to check the whereabouts of the parachutes, sees they are dotted across the sky, one to the left, one in the centre and the third to the right. He looks back at the old man and holds up the money. ‘I’ll give you five hundred US dollars.’

  The old man points at Billy’s shirt and makes a drinky-drinky gesture with his hand. ‘Iron Rhino gibs you wings.’

  ‘That’s actually Red Bull’s slogan but, hey, they all taste the same to me.’

  The old man grins, then holds up his arms in a bodybuilder’s pose. ‘It make me feel strong.’

  ‘Well it make me feel like my heart’s about to explode from all the caffeine, but whatever floats your boat.’ Billy holds up the money again. ‘So, about the bike, do we have a deal?’

  The old fella flips out the bike’s kickstand, slides off the seat, walks over to Billy, pushes away the hand holding the money and pinches the fabric of his Iron Rhino shirt.

  Billy understands immediately and peels it off, passes it to the old fella, then leans down and barks into the Hyundai’s cabin: ‘I’ll go after that one.’ He points at the chute to the right. ‘You go after one of the others. And don’t let them see your face unless you’re actually arresting them.’

  The Frenchman is baffled. ‘Are you sure —?’

  ‘Just go.’ Billy slams the door shut and ends the conversation. The Hyundai’s engine revs and the car peels away in a cloud of dust.

  Now shirtless, Billy swings onto the bike, flicks up the kickstand then shakes the frame to hear how much fuel sloshes in the tank. He doesn’t get a clear reading. ‘It has fuel?’

  ‘Yes, fuel enough, yes!’

  Yes, fuel enough, yes! Well, that could mean bloody anything, couldn’t it? Enough fuel to get a hundred metres down the road or the whole way into town. He’ll just have to trust it, it’s not like there’s anywhere to fill up nearby. Billy kickstarts the engine, slides the money into the breast pocket of the Iron Rhino shirt the old man now wears and wrenches the dirt bike’s accelerator wide open. The engine screams, the rear wheel spins up on the gravel then the bike catapults away.

  Billy descends the hill, scans the sky and locates the parachute that flies to the right. It must be a good five kilometres away, just a small white smudge against the grey mist of smog that slowly graduates to a blue sky.

  He can’t see any sign of the Frenchman, not even a dust cloud in the distance. The guy sure can drive, which both impresses and annoys the Aussie. Impresses because it’s difficult to drive fast safely, and annoyed because he really doesn’t want to be impressed by the rude prick.

  ~ * ~

  Claude keeps the Hyundai’s accelerator pressed to the carpet, the tiny engine straining against the limits of its specifications. The Frenchman’s eyes are fastened on the parachute which flies to the left. It’s a long way away, just a speck in the distance now. It drifts behind a stand of trees and disappears from view.

  He turns and scans the sky for the second parachute, hopes it’s close. It’s not. He can’t even see it. But he can see the parachute that flies to the right, the one the Australian said he would follow. It’s probably four kilometres away, its white canopy reflecting the midafternoon sun. It still has a lot of height, seems to be at least three hundred metres off the ground.

  A T-intersection quickly approaches. Claude throws out the anchors and the little Hyundai skids to a halt, gravel thumping into the floorpan, a paved roadway before him. He can turn left or right. Left takes him towards the parachutes he can no longer see. Right takes him towards the one he can, the one the Australian is going after.

  What should I do?

  He flattens the accelerator and turns the steering wheel.

  ~ * ~

  Red works the parachute’s guidelines, happy with the performance of the chute. It’s staying aloft beautifully, its glide ratio and manoeuvrability exactly as advertised. The other thing that’s going well is that Red isn’t being followed. He’s not that high, maybe three hundred metres above the ground, but can pretty well see everything that’s going on below and there are no vehicles in pursuit.

  The three of them purposely split up during the getaway to send the authorities scrambling in different directions, though it now seems that the jump was so unexpected that the police were caught flat-footed and splitting up may have been unnecessary. Red hopes the other two are having a similar experience and don’t have anyone following them.

  ~ * ~

  Billy’s eyes are locked on the white parachute. He can see that the gravel road curves left when he needs to be going right. To the side of the road there’s a dip after the shoulder, then a deep U-shaped drainage trench, then an old barbed-wire fence, then green fields that stretch into the distance, punctuated by the odd cow.

  Without slowing Billy swerves across the road, drops over the shoulder, races down into the drainage trench, hits the bottom then slingshots upwards, pulling the bike’s front wheel off the ground and flying it over the fence.

  ‘Iron Rhino gibs you wings!’

  It sure does, nice old Malaysian man, it sure does.

  Billy feels a surge of adrenaline as he arcs over the fence like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape. This is the single coolest thing he’s ever done. He just wishes there was someone around to see it.

  He lands on the grass and the suspension compresses completely. His back screams in pain from the impact but he doesn’t have time to worry about that because the front wheel hits a sharp dip, the bike noses down and he’s almost thrown over the handlebars, like it’s trying to buck him off. ‘Christ!’ If he falls and injures himself he could die out here in this field, unseen from the road because of that drainage trench.

  He’s ready to meet his maker, whoever it may be, has no fear of it, but not today. Today he’s going to run down that parachute because he’s sure whoever’s flying it is one of the guys who escaped him in Melbourne.

  He wrenches himself back onto the seat, regains his balance, pulls back on the throttle and shoots across the green grass, keeps his eyes on the ground to make sure he doesn’t hit another one of those bumps.

  He reaches the opposite end of the giant field in no time at all. He quickly moves through a gate, enters a paved roadway and turns right, guns t
he dirt bike towards the parachute, which is both closer and lower than before. He can now see how fast it moves across the sky, can just make out the parachutist. From his deft use of the steering lines Billy’s sure the guy knows exactly where he’s headed.

  But where is that?

  At full throttle, the Australian thunders under a tree canopy, which sprinkles the roadway with dappled sunlight. Billy can see very little above the leaves and quickly loses sight of the chute.

  A flash of white. Through a thin crack in the canopy he glimpses it. It swoops to the right then he loses sight of it again. He looks right, sees a tall fence. He won’t be jumping that one. It’s two metres high and constructed of solid wood.