The GoldenCity

About twenty miles from the prison, the van entered a large town that appeared to specialize in the manufacture and sale of silk fabric. Crimson dye trickled out of a home workshop and flowed into the gutter. Lengths of silk dried on backyard clotheslines-the fabric so thin and delicate that sunlight made the colors glow. Once again, Boone found himself thinking about the Asian girl standing on the dock with the nuns.

A marketplace filled a dirt side street in the middle of the town. There were wooden booths the size of small closets, carts piled high with manufactured goods, and market women squatting behind pyramids of oranges. The van stopped to let an ox cart pass. All of a sudden, Doyle climbed out of the van. He wasn’t frightened of the driver or worried about the police. He shouted a threat over his shoulder and sauntered through the open market.

“Mr. Horsley goes first,” Boone said into the headset, and the Australian slapped his rider’s shoulder. The motorcycle took off-its back tire spitting off flecks of red mud. Doyle heard the engine above the din of the market. He stopped, twisted his head around, and saw a man with a tinted helmet and a white staff speeding toward him like a knight on the battlefield.

The fugitive began running. He stepped behind a young woman with a basket of peppers balanced on her head, but she saw the bike approaching and flung herself to one side. The lance hit Doyle on his left shoulder blade. It was just a brief shock, but it made the American stagger.

Squires attacked a few seconds later, hitting Doyle in the lower back. This time, Doyle fell to his knees as the bike continued past him. The fugitive looked back and saw that Boone was about a hundred feet away, lowering the lance into a horizontal position. In few seconds, he was back on his feet and stumbling down a narrow pathway between two stalls.

Boone grabbed his rider’s belt and held on with one hand as the bike skidded in the mud. They made the turn and roared through the gap. Doyle was about twenty yards ahead of them-his head down, his arms extended as if he wanted to run on all fours. As the motorcycle got closer he dodged to the left, but Boone’s lance hit the big man’s leg and the shock flung him forward.

The two Australians reached the site and jumped off their bikes. Boone decided that more pain would teach a stronger lesson, so he let them jab their lances a dozen times. Doyle rolled in the mud like an epileptic having a seizure. “It’s the righteous god!” Squires shouted. “Feel that righteous god!”

***

A local policeman ran up, but the riders showed their military identification and announced that they had just arrested a terrorist. The van arrived a minute later, and plastic restraints were placed on Doyle’s wrists, arms and legs. Finally, he was gagged with a swatch of duct tape and loaded into the van like a slab of meat.

“Tell the riders to take you back to the hotel,” Boone told Squires. “Your money will arrive tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, sir. Is there any other way we can help you?”

“Tell Mr. Horsley to keep his mouth shut.”

Boone got in the back of the van and told the driver to head to the airport. Then he took a syringe out of his shoulder bag and jabbed it into a vial filled with a powerful tranquilizer. Doyle was lying on this back. His eyes rolled wildly when he saw the needle.

“When you wake up in America, you’ll have a wound on your right hand and another on the middle of your chest. We’re going to insert tracer beads between your skin and muscle. These devices will tell us where you are at all times.”

The syringe was full. When Boone leaned forward, Doyle moaned; he was trying to open his mouth and say something.

“If you run again, I’ll hunt you down just like we did today. You can’t escape, Doyle. It’s just not possible. I’m going to watch you until your task is done.”

25

Alice Chen decided that she was still the Warrior Princess of Skellig Columba. Through no fault of her own, she had been taken prisoner by the Queen of Darkness and was being transported to the City of Doom.

She held this vision in her mind for about ten minutes, and then the tea cart rattled down the corridor outside. Alice opened her eyes and found herself still sitting a train compartment while Sister Joan read a leather-bound breviary. Although Sister Joan was dressed in black, she was definitely not the Queen of Darkness. Instead she was a fat nun with spectacles who cooked delicious scones and got all weepy when someone read a news story about a brave dog that saved his family from a house fire.