‘Is this some kind of joke?’ said Amir.

They both stared at the shop dummy in bewilderment. ‘What the hell’s the colonel up to?’ said Connor.

‘Perhaps this is a ghost rendezvous,’ Amir suggested. ‘A way to check if we were being followed or not. Bugsy must have spotted the drone and they pulled out.’

‘But why the elaborate set-up?’ Connor’s smartband vibrated, alerting him it was 10:30 a.m.

The office strip lights flickered out and the room darkened to an ominous gloom.

Amir looked round and started backing away to the door. ‘I don’t like this,’ he said. ‘We should get out of here.’

As he spoke, a huge boom sounded outside and the building shook to its foundations. Dust and plaster rained down on them from cracks in the ceiling.

‘Was that a bomb?’ gasped Amir, trying to keep his feet as the floor beneath them shuddered.

‘Sounded like one!’ Rushing to the window, Connor looked down into the car park. The security guard and receptionist were running for their lives. Their guide Zhen was waving his arms madly up at them, gesturing to one side of the building. Connor peered through the glass and saw what the boy was pointing at. A huge grey wrecking ball was swinging towards the building on a direct collision course with their office.

‘RUN!’ Connor shouted at Amir, shoving his friend towards the door.

Feet skidding across the carpet, they dived into the meeting room just as the wrecking ball smashed into the office window, shattering the glass panes in a shower of lethal shards. The huge ball ploughed on through the office, taking with it the desk, the chair and the mannequin in one heavy swoop. The floor was eaten away and the ceiling caved in. The noise was like an avalanche of rock and rubble, the air turning thick with dust, as the whole building trembled from the impact.

Then the steel wrecking ball slowed its savage path of destruction, pausing for a brief moment before retreating. With a screeching groan, it fell away, leaving a jagged hole in the outside wall. The wind whistled and papers fluttered out into the empty sky like birds with broken wings.

Amir coughed and spluttered as Connor blinked away the dust and debris hanging in the air.

‘That was close,’ wheezed Connor, shaking the plaster from his hair. Then he saw Amir’s eyes widen in alarm.

The wrecking ball was coming back.

Scrambling to their feet, they raced for the door. But in their panic they’d forgotten it was locked. As Amir frantically yanked on the handle, the wrecking ball hurtled closer and closer.

‘It won’t open!’ cried Amir, throwing his full weight against the door.

Connor delved into his Go-bag and pulled out the XT tactical torch. Gripping it like an ice pick, he smashed the hexagonal strike-ring into the door’s narrow window. The pane shattered. Amir reached through, undid the lock and they kicked the door open just as the demolition ball punched another hole in the office block.

Racing down the hallway, Connor could hear the wrecking ball pursuing them like an out-of-control steamroller. The five-thousand-kilogram comet of steel demolished all in its path. Partition walls crumbled. Floorboards split. Ceiling panels fell.

‘The stairs!’ shouted Connor, his heart screaming in his chest as the grey juggernaut thundered after them.

Amir was almost at the stairwell when another demolition ball powered through the side wall. It rocketed past Amir, missing him by a whisker, though it took out the floor at his feet. Connor grabbed for Amir’s Go-bag as his friend tumbled into the abyss. Catching hold of the strap, he was jerked forward by Amir’s weight and pulled to the floor. All the breath was knocked from him, but he stopped his friend from breaking a limb in the fall. It also saved Connor’s life. The wrecking ball behind had reached the end of its arc and the steel whisked over Connor’s head on its way back out of the building.

Amir dangled over the floor below. ‘Don’t let me go!’ he pleaded.

But Connor had no choice. The other demolition ball was also on its return swing. Forced to release his grip on the strap, he dropped his friend and rolled away as the ball carved out another slice of concrete.

Then all was quiet again, the only sound the light pitter-patter of dust settling.

Connor called through the haze to the floor below. ‘You all right?’

‘Yeah!’ groaned Amir, rubbing his backside tenderly.

Before the wrecking balls made a repeat visit, Connor lowered himself over the hole and dropped down to the fifth floor. The whole level was stripped of furniture, light fittings and partition walls. Connor now realized the building was just a shell – a vacant office block.

Amir nodded towards the main stairwell, which was blocked with concrete lintels, bricks and debris. ‘How do we get out of here now?’

‘Fire escape,’ said Connor, pointing to a green sign with an arrow. But they’d barely taken a step towards the fire door when the first wrecking ball smashed in the corner of the building. Connor and Amir were knocked off their feet and a section of the sixth floor caved in, cutting off that escape route.

The building shuddered yet again as the second demolition ball hammered into its side. Bricks and concrete support pillars exploded from the catastrophic impact, and morbid creaks and groans began sounding from the entire office block.

‘Another few hits and this building’s going to collapse like a house of cards!’ cried Amir, crawling over to Connor.

As the wrecking balls tore their way through the building once more, Connor looked desperately around for another fire escape. But there didn’t appear to be one. Then he spotted the bright yellow plastic of a builder’s rubbish chute poking through an open window. ‘There! That’s our way out.’

He dragged Amir to standing and they dashed over to the plastic tube.

‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ said Amir, peering down the dark hole to nothing. ‘We’re five floors up!’

‘It’s either this or being flattened like a pancake!’ Connor replied as the building let out another pained groan. ‘You go first.’

Amir stared at him. ‘Why me?’

‘I want something soft to land on!’ He took off his Go-bag and threw it down first. ‘There, that should take the sting out of things.’

But Amir was still reluctant and Connor didn’t blame him – they were likely to crash-land on to rubble, bricks and glass. And that’s if they were lucky! Then a wrecking ball blasted its way through the fifth floor, forcing his friend to make up his mind. Amir tossed his own Go-bag into the tube and leapt in after it.

Connor decided to give his friend a count of five to allow him time to move out of the way. However, before he finished the countdown, the second demolition ball smashed through the wall beside him. It sent masonry flying like shrapnel from a bomb, and a brick struck Connor on the back of the head. He was knocked to the floor, stars bursting before his eyes and his head ringing like a bell. For a moment he thought the room was spinning. Then with utter horror he realized it was – it was collapsing.

Fighting his sickening disorientation, Connor staggered back over to the chute and jumped in. He flew down at breakneck speed, a straight run to the ground. A second later he was spat out into a skip, landing hard on a pile of wood, cardboard and junk. The skin was taken off his elbows and his back jarred against the edge of a filing cabinet.

‘What kept you?’ asked Amir, pulling him to his feet.

Connor grimaced with pain and rubbed the back of his head where a large bruise was forming. ‘Thought I’d admire the view.’

Grabbing their Go-bags, they tumbled out of the skip. The wrecking balls continued pulverizing the office block and the entire building started to reel like a concussed boxer. Bricks rained down as Connor and Amir ran for the safety of the street. Then the structure gave way entirely and the building collapsed in on itself. A monstrous roar preceded the tidal wave of bricks and masonry. A huge dust cloud billowed out, enveloping them and plunging their world into a murky darkness. Unable to see or breathe, they staggered blindly across the car park. Then the air cleared a little, the building exhaled its last wheeze and they found themselves beside the rickshaw, bruised, bloodied yet alive.

‘We could’ve been killed!’ gasped Amir, bent over double, his hands on his knees.

Connor stared at the demolished building, now little more than a dark corpse in the haze. ‘I think that was the whole point.’