The train kept accelerating, glowing green LED displays in the ceiling of the car giving its speed. Already past 150 kilometers per hour, 200, and still rising fast.

The glare of the spotlight disappeared; Yuen’s helicopter had been left eating dust.

Chase turned back to Sophia. She had come through the experience in better condition than he, grass stains on her dress and a few small cuts on her bare arms the only damage. “Are you all right?” he asked anyway.

“I’m fine.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Thank you, Eddie. Thanks for helping me. I knew you’d come.”

“I couldn’t really say no, could I? But try not to make a habit of it.”

Sophia smiled. “I’ll try.” She sat back, looking out of the window as the outskirts of Shanghai whipped past in the darkness. “So now what?”

“Now? We get to the airport, I pick up the rest of my stuff from a locker, then we get on a plane and go back to the States.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that. Working for the U.N. can be pretty boring… but there are some perks. Once we’re in the air I’ll call my boss at the IHA. Then we can find out just how deep in the shit your husband’s got himself.”

He thought about the flash drive in Sophia’s handbag. What did Yuen want with the IHA’s files, and what was his connection to the sinking of the SBX platform over Atlantis?

More to the point, what was Yuen’s interest in him-and Nina? He felt a brief flash of guilt for not having thought about her, wondering if she was all right.

She was probably fine, he decided. Whatever she was doing, it could hardly compare to what he’d just been through…

Nina picked her way as fast as she dared along the dark tunnel, cold water splashing up her legs. From the smell, she assumed that a sewer was leaking into the passage. Every so often she heard flurries of movement-rats scuttling away from her.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been running or how far she’d traveled from City Hall station-only that it wasn’t far enough. While the narrow tunnel twisted, it only went in one direction. Barred gates blocked every side passage, leaving nowhere she could hide from her pursuers.

And they were getting closer. By closing the hatch in the abandoned station she had given herself a little extra time as they checked the stairs… but realizing there was no way out, they hadn’t taken long to guess where she’d gone.

Her arms ached as much as her legs. The book was getting heavier, sharp edges digging into her flesh. But she couldn’t get rid of it even if she wanted to, couldn’t simply drop it so her hunters could take what they were after. It was still locked to her wrist.

Another turn. Nina rounded it, hoping to see an exit, or at least other passages to confuse the men behind her. But there was nothing except more feeble lights on the arched brick ceiling pointing her way further into the darkness.

And more water. The tunnel dipped before leveling out again, the stagnant pool at her feet becoming deeper. Somewhere ahead she could hear a low hiss of flowing water.

Running became harder, a layer of sticky ooze beneath the filthy surface engulfing her feet at each step. It felt like a childhood nightmare come to life, the sensation of trying to run through quicksand.

Her fear rose. The slower she moved, the closer the two men got-and they didn’t need to catch her. Just shoot her.

Gasping for breath, she ran faster, forcing her knees higher as her feet pounded through the sludge. The noise of running water ahead grew louder-as did the splashes from behind.

She didn’t dare look back. Another bend in the tunnel, a faint glow of daylight on the walls as well as the greasy yellow of the bulbs-

One of the sets of chasing footsteps suddenly stopped.

A clear shot-

The flat thumps of the silenced shots were amplified by the confined space, but they were nothing compared to the splintering crack of bullets hitting the walls as Nina threw herself headlong around the corner. Chunks of broken brickwork rained on her as she landed in the disgusting pool.

The firing stopped. She pushed herself up, something awful crunching under one hand in the muck. Cockroaches slithered away from her. The tunnel sloped upwards again, the source of the daylight visible at its end. An opening into a larger chamber.

A way out.

Nina ran up the slope. Water trickled from above the opening. She reached the end-

And grabbed desperately at an overhead pipe as she almost fell down an open shaft.

She hung for a moment, one hand around the pipe and her toes clinging to the edge of the tunnel. Then, very carefully, she shifted her weight and leaned back, wobbling on the brink before regaining her balance.

The tall chamber she had entered was about ten feet across, some sort of sewer shaft. Pipes entered it at various heights and angles, spewing their contents into the void below. The daylight came through grubby glass bricks in the ceiling some forty feet above. As she watched, somebody walked over them, for a moment blotting out the sky.

Rusted rungs protruded from the wall, a ladder leading up to a manhole cover at street level…

A locked manhole cover. Even from this distance, she could see the padlock holding it shut.

She looked down. The rungs descended into the abyss below, but she couldn’t even guess how deep it went. Not that it mattered. Whether she went up or down, the gunmen would reach the end of the tunnel long before she reached either end of the ladder.

But there was something on the other side of the shaft, another passage. The entrance was smaller than the one in which she was standing, but she could see the distant glimmer of a light within. Another way out.

If she could reach it. There was no bridge across the shaft, only the metal pipe above her head-

Nina cradled the heavy book on her shoulder, squeezing it as firmly as she could between her cheek and her upper arm as she reached up and took hold of the pipe with her left hand. Then she stretched out her right hand, took a deep, fearful breath…

And swung out over the shaft.

The book wobbled, threatening to pitch forward. She pushed her face harder against the leather to keep it in place. If the book fell, the jolt when the chain pulled taut would tear her loose.

Gripping the pipe as tightly as she could, she slid her right hand forward by about a foot. Then she jerked her left hand along behind it, a couple of inches at a time, trying to keep the book in position. Its hard edge dug savagely into her shoulder. Another foot, another series of little jerks to catch up…

She heard splashing from the passage behind.

Nina let out a strained gasp as she tried to move faster. The book slipped again. She wrestled it between her head and arm, forcing it back into place. Another foot, then the frantic catch-up, right hand forward once more…

Halfway across. She had no idea when the gunmen would be able to see her hanging there, an unmissable target.

But if they shot her, she would fall into the unknown below, taking the book with her. If the shaft opened into a main sewer line, their prize would be swept away. That might deter them from firing.

Maybe…

Every move made her gasp now, panic rising. A line of pain seared through her shoulder as the book’s brass frame ground into her muscles. Three feet, two, boots clattering up the sloping passage behind her…

Rancid water, and worse, spewed onto her from an outlet above, drenching her hair and clothing. The pipe was slick under her hands. Nina could feel the book shifting, sliding backwards this time. She pushed her cheek against it, trying to hold it in place, but it was moving towards the point of no return.