Annja heard a sudden snap and a victorious shout from below. "Ken, the elevator!"

He nodded. "Come on!"

They ran toward the largest of the crates. Ken ran behind one and then came back out with a smile. "Found it."

They moved behind the crate and Annja saw the small metal grate open up as Ken jerked on it. A tiny set of stairs led up. But where?

"Pull it shut behind you," Ken said. "And let's hustle. They'll be up here any minute."

Annja stooped in and pulled the grate down behind her. She felt the dusty stairs beneath her hands. They'd be filthy as sin when they got out, but they couldn't afford a run-in with the cops right now. Not when there was so much at stake.

And as much as Annja hated the idea of running like a guilty party, she didn't think the police would be all that warm and fuzzy toward her.

Ken shuffled quickly up the stairs and Annja heard him pop open the other end of the tunnel. Bright sunlight flooded the tunnel. He scampered out and put his hand back in to Annja. "Come on."

She grabbed it and he helped pull her out of the air-conditioning duct onto the roof. She glanced back. "You think they'll figure it out?"

"Don't know, don't care." Ken ran to the edge of the roof and glanced down. He moved back. "Not that way. Cops are all over the place."

He checked the opposite edge and saw the fire escape. "This will work."

Annja followed him. Ken helped her over the lip of the roof. "Start climbing down."

"I hope this doesn't go past Jiro's windows."

Ken shook his head. "It doesn't. We would have seen it, remember?"

"Yeah." Annja ducked down and let her feet descend as she gripped the rusted sides of the fire escape. She looked at the bolts securing it to the side of the building and frowned. This thing doesn't look like it's been used in years, she thought.

Above her Ken started climbing down. Annja looked beneath her and frowned. "Oh, no."

"What's the matter?" Ken asked.

"The fire escape isn't extended."

"Just keep climbing down. When you get to the final step, you'll have to trigger the release yourself. Can you do it?"

"I guess."

Annja climbed down farther. The last of the ladder rungs arrived too quickly and she was still at least fifty feet from the ground.

"See that hook? There's one on either side," Ken said. "Undo them and then you should drop down toward the ground."

Annja located the hooks and unsnapped them.

The fire escape didn't move. "Dammit!"

"Jump," Ken said.

Annja glanced back up. "What?"

He grinned. "Not down. Just jump up and down and see if that triggers the release."

Annja took a breath and jumped. She felt the other half of the fire escape start to give. But a bit of rust seemed to be hindering it from coming all the way undone and letting the fire escape continue down toward the ground.

"Jump again," Ken said. "Hurry!"

Annja jumped.

The ladder came free and Annja plummeted toward the ground. She grabbed the ladder with both hands as the building face shot past her. She glanced up at Ken who was now scampering toward her even as the distance between them increased.

The ladder jerked to a sudden halt, nearly toppling Annja from her perch as gravity pulled hard on her body. "Oof!"

Ken came streaking down the ladder. "You okay?"

"Shoulder," Annja said. "But yeah."

"They'll be on the roof soon. We've got to go now."

Annja slid down the last few rungs. The fire escape was still short of the ground by a good twenty feet.

"Now we'll have to jump," Ken said.

"That's concrete down there," Annja said. "Twenty feet and we'll have ourselves a couple of broken bones. If we're lucky."

"You trust me?"

"I guess."

"Thanks." Ken chuckled. "Listen to me. Drop down and when you hit the ground, tuck yourself into a ball and roll. Can you do that?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Sure, you can spend years in prison when the cops catch you."

"What about you?"

"I'll take my own life in a fit of traditional duty." He grinned. "Just do it, Annja. You'll be fine if you do what I say."

The ground looked a long way away, but she knew Ken was right. There was no time left to dawdle. She took a breath and let go of the fire escape.

She exhaled and then the ground shot up for her. Her feet hit and she allowed herself to collapse, breathing out the last of her breath, and immediately sinking on her knees, tumbling and then rolling.

She stopped rolling and felt okay.

Ken hit the ground a second later. He rolled and was already up and moving even as Annja tried to get up. Her shoulder hurt like h.e.l.l.

Ken's hand was on her arm. "Come on. You okay?"

"Shoulder."

"We'll get to it later. We've got to get out of here."

They ran down the neighboring street. When they'd cleared a block, they risked looking back. Only then did they see the heads of police officers peering over the edge of the building, scouring the streets below for signs of Ken and Annja.

"You don't think they know what we look like, do you?" Annja asked.

Ken shook his head. "Not a chance. Unless they had video cameras there, which they didn't. We're cool."

"Nice to know we won't end up on j.a.pan's Most Wanted j.a.pan's Most Wanted tonight." tonight."

"We need to get back to the ryokan ryokan and get our gear." and get our gear."

"Too bad you didn't get a chance to refill your ammunition supply while we were there," Annja said.

Ken grinned. "Says who?"

"You did?"

He lifted his jacket and Annja saw the spare magazines filled with fresh rounds. "You had time to grab that?"

"While I was looking, yeah."

"I don't suppose you found me a gun?"

"Unfortunately, no."

"Great."

"You can use mine, if it makes you feel better, but honestly, I didn't think you'd want a gun after that giant sword you used last night."

"Don't bring that up."

"I'm not." Ken smiled. "But it was an awfully big blade."

"And somehow I managed to handle it well."

"You did seem very well accustomed to handling it."

They crossed the street by the train station and Ken pointed at a noodle restaurant. "We'll grab some lunch here and then head back."

"At this rate it will be dark when we get into the mountains," Annja said.

"Probably."

"You're not concerned about that?"

Ken shrugged. "Day, night, it doesn't much matter to me. But I want to make sure you're okay. So we'll eat and give that shoulder a moment to rest. If it isn't better when we get back to the ryokan ryokan, then we'll see a doctor about it."

"I'm sure it'll be fine," Annja said. "And I'm not really a huge fan of doctors."

"You're scared of doctors?"

"I never said that."

"Okay."

He held open the split curtain and they entered the small stand. Ken pointed at the seating bar. "I'll order. You sit and pretend doctors don't scare you."

"Ken," Annja said. "Don't make me pull out my big sword."

He laughed. "I can't figure out if that's some sort of vague s.e.xual innuendo or not."

"It's not," Annja said.

But she was smiling too.

26.

Nezuma watched as Annja and Kennichi made their way into the noodle stand. Next to him, Shuko shook her head.

"The police certainly acted like idiots."

"They usually do," Nezuma said. "Even though they were told to be there shortly after Kennichi and Creed entered the building. Leave it to our bureaucratic morons to screw up something so simple."

"Why did you want to lay a trap like that? It seems rather counterproductive to me."

Nezuma smiled. "Because it would give us a bit more time to get ourselves in position. Plus, I have a contact on the police force here. Given a little time, I could have arranged to have him place a homing device on Kennichi or Creed. And that would have given us a great deal of luxury."

"Such as not having to sit here and do surveillance?"

"Exactly." Nezuma slid on his sungla.s.ses. "There's nothing I abhor more than this mundane lack of action. Even now, they're having themselves a bite to eat while we're forced to sit out here and wait for them to finish."

"I could get us something," Shuko said.

"No." Nezuma shook his head. "We might miss them leaving while you're gone and I don't want to have to leave you behind."

"Thank you."

He smiled at her. "Of course."

"So we wait now, is that it?"