There didn’t seem to be anywhere to go, only a bank of escalators leading up to another level and the entrance to a department store-

Chase gritted his teeth and rode the moped through the doors. He felt the little bike slithering as the surface beneath its wheels changed from tiles to cheap purple carpet. Racks of clothes whipped past, women shrieking and jumping out of the way as he sounded the feeble horn.

He felt Sophia shift position behind him. “What are you-”

She grabbed the clothes on a large rack as they passed. The rack toppled and crashed to the floor behind them. Chase heard the motorbike’s brakes lock, then a Chinese curse as the rider slammed into it and the bike instantly flipped end over end in the air, landing with a sickening crash on top of the driver. “Nice one!” he cried.

“I’m more than just a pretty face, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember.” They emerged from the other side of the store into a large atrium. Chase still couldn’t see an exit. “How do you get out of here?”

“That way,” Sophia told him, pointing at a ramp on the other side of the atrium.

Chase drove for it, keeping his thumb on the horn button. “Get out of the bloody way!” he roared at a group of dawdlers blocking the path, who seemed oblivious to the rapidly approaching bike.

Sophia directed him up the ramp, following the signs for the exit. The mall’s security personnel were finally responding to the chaos, trying to close the doors and trap the moped’s passengers inside. Chase took out the gun and fired a single shot up at the ceiling, which prompted the guards to reconsider their actions and flee for cover as he rode past and out onto a street.

He had a fairly good idea where they were-Mei had driven him through this part of the city when she’d picked him up. They weren’t far from the maglev station. He rejoined the traffic and buzzed down the road. The buildings on either side were now mostly blocks of flats. He made another turn to get onto a wider highway-

A rush of noise from above, then suddenly they were pinned in a circle of glaring white light. The spotlight of a helicopter.

“Is that the police?” he shouted. The chopper was coming in low above the road, its rotors whipping up a fierce wind around them.

“Worse!” Sophia yelled back. “My husband!”

“Chase!” boomed Yuen, voice amplified through a loudspeaker. “Stop the bike and let my wife go, now!”

“You up for that?” Chase asked. Sophia shook her head. “Me neither.” He darted the moped between the milling cars, squeezing through every gap he could find. The spotlight followed like the pointing finger of God.

“Chase! Last warning! Stop right now!”

“Keep going!” Sophia ordered. “We’re almost there! And he’s in a helicopter-what can he do?”

The answer came a moment later as the chopper dropped even lower and roared overhead, barely above the height of the streetlamps and phone cables. The blinding spotlight was now pointing back at them.

Chase screwed up his eyes against the glare, narrowly avoiding the back end of a sharply braking car as its driver was dazzled. He realized what Yuen had in mind-the chopper was heading for the concourse outside the station, either to hover just above it and block their path, or even to land so that more of his men could come after them.

Vehicles screeched to a halt around them, their drivers blinded. The crunching bangs of collisions pierced the thunderous noise of the helicopter like gunshots. Traffic ground to a standstill, horns blasting.

Chase could see the station now off to the right, the metal and glass facade of the terminal building in front of the huge elevated steel tube housing the actual platforms. The helicopter drifted sideways from the road, descending towards the concourse.

Last chance-

He revved the struggling engine and peeled away between the stalled vehicles, Sophia’s arms tight around his waist. The helicopter kept the spotlight pointed at them as they reached the approach to the station. The main entrance was at the base of a convex glass wall halfway along the building-but the chopper was now hovering right in front of it, blocking their way.

“Whatever you do,” Chase shouted to Sophia, “keep your head down!”

He changed direction, heading away from the entrance, straight for the wall of the terminal-and pulled out the gun to fire at the windows.

The glass burst into a billion fragments and cascaded downwards like jagged rain just before the moped hurtled through it.

Chase found himself in an office, most of the desks empty but some night workers still screaming and flinging themselves clear as he raced past.

Another window at the far end-

He pulled the trigger again-and got only a dry click.

“Hold on to me!” he yelled as the moped rushed at the window. Sophia’s grip tightened. “Jump!”

They dived off the bike, Chase taking the brunt of the impact as he hit the floor with Sophia on top of him. The riderless moped crashed through the window and skidded across the enclosed concourse beyond before finally toppling over and coming to a halt.

“You okay?” Chase asked.

“Yes, I think so,” said Sophia, standing and brushing off a few stray splinters of glass.

Wincing in pain, Chase staggered upright. He glanced down at Sophia’s bare feet, then before she could protest hoisted her over his shoulder once more and lumbered through the broken window.

They emerged on the far side of the passenger turnstiles, station staff looking on in astonishment at the wrecked moped and shattered glass. Chase reached into his jacket with his free hand. “Got my tickets here, no need to check them!” he shouted, waving them in the air. He hurried up the nearest escalator to the platform before anyone thought to try to stop them.

A train was waiting, a long gleaming metal caterpillar. There were no wheels, the whole thing floating just above the track, levitated by a magnetic field. The Shanghai maglev was currently the longest railway of its kind in the world-and it was also the fastest passenger service of any kind in the world. The nineteen-mile journey between the Shanghai terminal and Pudong airport southeast of the city took just seven minutes, at its fastest the monorail hitting 430 kilometers per hour.

Faster, Chase knew, than any helicopter.

He hurried to the nearest door, just behind the blunt curve of the train’s rear cab, and put Sophia back down on her feet before ushering her inside. The doors closed behind them. They attracted more than a few curious looks from other passengers as they moved up the car to find seats. Looking down at himself, he realized that his tuxedo was smeared with mud, its sleeves ripped and glinting with fragments of glass.

“So much for my James Bond look,” he said sadly as the train began to move.

Sophia squeezed his hand. “You’re far better than James Bond,” she assured him with a smile. He smiled back, then looked out of the window. Even though it had only been in motion for a matter of seconds, the train was already emerging from the steel cocoon of the station, accelerating with an almost unsettling smoothness, literally gliding along the track.

And rising up alongside the elevated track was Yuen’s helicopter, the spotlight sweeping along the length of the train. Hunting for them.

Finding them. Locking on…

For just a moment. Then the train began to draw away, outpacing the chopper despite the pilot’s best efforts to keep up.

Chase used one hand to block out the spotlight, making out Yuen in the copilot’s seat. He gave him a cheerful wave. Even as the helicopter fell back, Yuen’s expression of fury was clear.

But there was nothing he could do to stop them now, short of opening fire on the maglev. And however big Yuen’s business, however many friends he had in the Chinese government, riddling the country’s most prestigious technological wonder with bullets was not something he could easily brush off.