Free The Ultimate Secret by David Thomas Moore Page A

scrambling, without even stepping into a corridor, much less out into the street.
    Women, children and the elderly cried out, startled, as she barged through, jumping over or slipping past people as they cooked, ate, sang, talked, argued, read and slept. She paid none of them any heed. Behind her, she heard a somewhat louder outcry as her pursuer blundered into the tightly-packed homes. She heard shouting and swearing, and she smiled. Then she heard two gunshots and she ran even faster.
    She threw open another door and came out into a covered alley on the far side of the building, this one wider, cleaner, even dimly gaslit. The smell of the fish market wafted up from one end, and the roar of traffic could be heard at the other.
    Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick.
    She looked up and left towards the sound, close to panic, and made out two huge figures lumbering–
    No, that wasn’t right. They moved slowly and haltingly, as though assessing every step, but with precision and economy.
    The figures picked their way slowly and carefully towards her. They were at least seven feet tall, and broad with it, with slightly unnatural proportions, their ungainly limbs and craning necks seeming slightly stretched. Although they were fully dressed, in long kurtas and broad hats, she was sure it was more for disguise than modesty. In the half-light, she could make out nothing of their features. Every few steps, one or the other would pause for a half-second or so, as though uncertain about its footing. Every time they did, they emitted that staccato ticking sound.
    Kim felt ice trickle down her back as they picked their way towards her. She backed away from them, stumbling and nearly falling over before she could finally tear her eyes from the things. She wheeled on one foot and sprinted down the alley, dimly registering them both stopping to make that noise as she did so:
    Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick.
    She’d gone no more than five steps before skidding to a halt, as two of the suited Chinese men entered the alley from the other end. Now they were looking directly at her, and both drawing pistols from hidden holsters.
    “No need for you to be hurt,” one of them said, in thickly-accented English. “We just want the message.”
    She didn’t respond. The heavy, halting footfalls of the strange figures behind her drew closer as she stared, appalled, at the men advancing on her.
    Got to time this right...
    The first man slowly put his pistol away and held his hands out towards her as he approached. “Do you understand me? We want your message, the one Smith sent you to get. We don’t want to hurt you.”
    Kim just stared at him, wide-eyed and silent, mouth open and panting. Inside, she was concentrating on slowing her heartbeat, the way her grandfather taught her, and emptying her mind. Another footfall behind her. Nearly...
    The Chinese agent swore and turned to his partner. “Do you speak Hindi?”
    The second man shrugged and said something brief in Mandarin. Another footfall from the figures behind her.
    Now.
    She abruptly ducked, paused for a fraction of a second – tick-tick-tick-tick-tick – then rolled backwards between the two manlike hulks behind her. As she did so, she got her first clear look at them. The reaching hands, as she passed beneath their fingers, were hinged steel; the faces, polished brass, sculpted into idealised Han Chinese forms, with fixed, determined expressions. Under the chins, coils, springs and gears at the top of the necks, rattling and spinning.
    Clearing the space between the machines, she twisted and came to her feet with her back to them and sprinted back to the fish market, to lose herself in the crowd again.
     
     
    “Y ES... ” SAID S MITH, reading the decrypted message. He nodded to himself once and tucked the sheet away in a folder on his desk. “Just so.” He looked up again at Kim, who stood before the desk as before, hands held behind her. “You’ve done well, Kim.”
    “Thank you, Smith.”