He ran between the benches and equipment cubicles, through the connecting doors to the Training Lab, and out into the corridor. Not to the center of the building, he told himself. They could come back out through the doors from the Test Lab and cut him off. He went the other way, to the emergency stairs at the end of the building, stopping on the far side of the door to uncoil an armful of hose from the fire point and drape it around the door handle and supply valve nearby. Guessing that it might gain him maybe half a minute at most, he raced down the stairs. Muffled thuds and sounds of the door being shaken came from above; then the sound of footsteps running back inside the building to the main stairs. Kevin reached the emergency exit, pressed the bar, and emerged outside the building.
He ran to the corner, from where he would have to cross the front parking area to get away. The blue Ford that the two men had come in was parked out front, and for a moment Kevin thought of going for it. But there wasn’t time. He didn’t have enough driver’s confidence to be sure of a quick getaway—even if the keys were there, which he doubted. He sprinted instead for the gate.
Halfway across the parking area, he heard the main doors of the building being thrown open. “Hey! . . . Hey, you! Stop! I told you it’s okay. We just wanna talk.” Kevin ran, not looking back, convinced that the gate was receding as fast as he approached. He heard car doors slam behind him, then the motor starting. Even if he got to the gate, he thought breathlessly, what then? There were acres of empty office park out there and nobody for a mile. He’d be overtaken in minutes whichever way he ran. Gasping, his chest pounding, he ran anyway. What else was there?
But the gate did get closer. And as Kevin came to it, who should he see but Taki on the other side, waving him on encouragingly. A hallucination, he decided. Warning of imminent terminal cardiac collapse. But Ohira’s car was there too, with Ohira standing by it talking into a phone. Only then did Kevin become aware of the deeper, throatier chugging, growing louder than the sound of the car engine gaining on him from behind. Only as he swung through the gateway did he see the earthmover coming the other way, black smoke puffing from its standpipe, manned by two of the innumerable relatives.
Royal, his foot hard down, didn’t see it at all until it was too late. The Ford went through the gate with its tires squealing—there was a metallic clang-gg-gg, followed by the rending of crushed hood and a hiss of stove-in radiator—and was pushed ignominiously back in again by the huge blade. The earthmover halted, barricading the gateway.
Kevin leaned an arm on Ohira’s car and stood panting and shaking as the strain and sudden exertion after hours of being immobile took effect. Taki walked up to him and grinned.
“Knock-knock.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Kevin wheezed murderously.
Ohira nodded in satisfaction and came back from the gate. “So you listen next time when I say you need help, okay?” He clapped a hand lightly on Kevin’s shoulder and indicated the car. “Get in. My cousins will take care of those two. Now we have more work to attend to.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The Lincoln followed the Cadillac south on the Interstate when they reached the city, passing a few blocks from where Michelle lived on the east side of Lake Union. They exited west, passing the Naval Training Center at the southernmost tip of the lake, and then headed north along the west shore until they came to a white building near the water’s edge, with palms and colored lights in the windows, and a large, neon-bordered sign declaring it to be the “Shoals.” Michelle knew the place: an exclusive marine club opened a year or so previously on Westlake, frequented by the local celebrities and millionaires, actual and aspiring. Despite her proximity across the lake, it wasn’t a social scene that had ever held much appeal for her personally.