“Close the cabinet door, Randi.”

When she did a dim red light came on, providing just enough illumination to see.

“There’s a latch on the left side. Can you find it?”

She squinted into the gloom, finally spotting it as the voices grew louder and the footfalls grew closer. At least one man was in the kitchen. Probably two.

The mechanism was completely silent and she managed to engage it right before someone jerked on the handle from outside. The impacts of a rifle butt against the cabinet door started a moment later.

Yoshima looked up at her. “I take it you found it.”

“Yes. Can we leave now?”

“Of course, but first I’d like to thank you for wearing a skirt.”

She was about to kick him in the side of the head when the sound of automatic fire erupted. Randi threw her hands up reflexively, but the bullets didn’t penetrate, instead ringing off the cabinet door’s steel reinforcements. She cursed under her breath when she heard a pained scream from one of the men trying to get at them. He’d clearly been caught with a ricochet. There was no way to hold her responsible for that, was there? Technically the moron shot himself.

“Can I safely remove the explosive taped to the back of my neck?” Yoshima asked calmly.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” she shouted as another deafening volley hit the cabinet door. “It’s piece of tape with a Tic Tac in it.”

Yoshima sighed as they started sliding down the cable. “Of course it is.”

The ride down took only a few seconds, which still felt like an eternity to Randi. If the men above managed to get through, they would spray bullets down into the shaft. There would be nowhere to run.

Randi crammed her knees onto the wall, taking the weight off Yoshima as he flicked on another red light and opened a panel that led to the underground garage. They climbed out, weaving through the cars parked there and watching for any sign of the Chinese authorities. Beyond the security cameras bolted near the ceiling, though, it looked clear.

Yoshima crept around a battered delivery van and waved her up as he threw a leg over a beefy BMW motorcycle that looked like it had been designed for the Baja 500.

She jumped on the back as he fired up the motor, barely getting her arms around his waist before the front wheel lifted and they started up the garage’s ramp.

They dodged around the exit gate, nearly scraping the wall as a startled attendant looked on. Yoshima put the bike into a well-practiced slide and she tried to keep her weight neutral enough to allow him to turn onto the sidewalk. Pedestrians dived in every direction as they accelerated, but to his credit Yoshima managed to miss each of them.