The glut of people spilling out of the Hive and into the street helped to cover their escape. Charley engaged her wheelchair’s electric motor and Connor ran at her side. His breathing was loud in his ears, the whine of the alarm and the guards’ angry shouts strangely dull and distant by comparison. It was as if another person, a different body, was fleeing from the Hive, someone else’s feet pounding the pavement. He felt disconnected from the world, numb to all his senses.

Colonel Black was dead. His final link to his father had been severed and now he’d been set adrift. The colonel might not have been everything he professed, but he certainly proved to be a courageous man at heart, a loyal soldier and a true bodyguard.

The zing of a bullet passing his ear quickly brought Connor back to his senses and he ran even harder. They turned the corner. Amir and Zhen were waiting for them by the auto-rickshaw at the side of the road.

‘Where’s the colonel?’ asked Amir, looking past them.

‘Dead,’ Connor gasped. ‘He sacrificed himself for us.’

For a brief moment it looked like Amir had been knifed through the heart himself. ‘So we risked everything for nothing.’

‘No, we got Charley back,’ replied Connor, managing to find a smile amid his sorrow.

‘Of course,’ said Amir, reaching out and clasping Charley’s hand. ‘In more ways than one. Sorry I ever doubted you.’

‘Sorry I gave you reason to doubt me,’ she replied sadly. Her gaze switched from Amir to the Chinese girl in the black-and-orange fast-food jacket. ‘Who’s this?’

‘Zhen, our guide,’ explained Amir.

‘Then guide us out of here,’ said Charley, hearing a shout in the near distance. ‘The guards aren’t far behind.’

Without needing to be told twice, Zhen leapt into the driver’s seat and gunned the engine. The underpowered motor emitted a flatulent phut-phut-phut as Amir stepped aside to allow Charley into the back seat.

‘Are you serious?’ said Charley, eyeing the compact cabin. ‘We can’t all fit in!’

‘She’s right,’ said Connor. ‘Besides, this rickshaw will be too slow with four of us aboard. We need another vehicle.’

An Equilibrium guard rounded the corner and immediately called for reinforcements.

‘Over there!’ said Zhen, pointing to a gleaming black motorcycle with a sidecar. ‘Use my rival’s ride.’

A Shanghai Insiders tour guide had pulled up on the opposite side of the road and dismounted, giving a potted history of the 1933 Building to a pair of backpackers. With the tour guide’s attention on the unique architecture and the apparent fire evacuation, Connor and Charley dashed over to the motorcycle.

Charley swiftly transferred herself into the sidecar. Connor collapsed her chair and hooked it on to the back luggage rack before leaping on the rider’s seat. Having ridden mini-motorbikes through Epping Forest as a kid with his father, Connor was familiar with the workings of a bike. He kickstarted the engine, startling the tour guide out of his patter.

‘Hey, that’s my bike!’ the man cried in outrage.

But Connor engaged first gear and hit the throttle before the guide could stop them. The motorbike and sidecar roared away. Zhen and Amir followed close behind as four guards ran into the road to block their escape. Connor kicked up a gear and drove straight at them. A bullet whizzed past his head. Another pinged off the metal nose of the sidecar, forcing Charley to hunker lower in her seat. Holding his nerve, Connor kept his line and the guards scattered a moment before they were mown down.

Chased by the sound of gunfire, Connor accelerated away, gripping the handlebars tight and counter-steering as the bike naturally pulled in the direction of the sidecar. At the end of the street, he bore right, Zhen staying hard on his tail.

‘Are you all right, Charley?’ asked Connor as they left the Hive behind and crossed a bridge back into central Shanghai.

Nodding, Charley sat up in the sidecar.

‘What about the neuro-controller? Any chance the Director could hijack you?’

Charley hesitantly shook her head. ‘I think … I must be out of range.’

Now they were a good distance down the road, Connor slowed his bike a touch and Zhen’s rickshaw came up alongside.

‘Where are we going?’ Amir cried over the two engines’ combined roars.

‘Warehouse,’ Connor shouted back, weaving his way through the traffic. ‘Safest place. Good work on the fire alarm by the way, Amir. You saved our lives!’

Amir grinned. ‘Thanks. With all the computer servers in the Hive, I guessed a CO₂ system had been installed. It was separate to Equilibrium’s mainframe so I could hack in and control –’

A bullet shattered the back window of the rickshaw and Amir cowered in the footwell, hands covering his head as shards of Perspex rained down on him. In his wing mirror, Connor spotted four motorbikes racing after them through the lines of traffic. He twisted the throttle, and the motorcycle and its sidecar surged forward. Zhen did her best to keep up, the rickshaw’s puny engine straining at maximum speed. Only the jam of cars and the nimbleness of her driving allowed her to stay one step ahead of their pursuers.

‘We’ll never shake them off!’ Zhen yelled to Connor as a bullet disintegrated her wing mirror to a stub of metal.

‘American Embassy,’ Charley shouted back. ‘That’s close to here, isn’t it?’

Zhen nodded, then swerved round a startled pedestrian crossing the road.

‘But what about Equilibrium inside agents?’ yelled Amir as the rickshaw mounted the pavement and cut through a red light.

Connor followed, horns blasting as he narrowly missed a collision with a taxi. He drew back alongside the rickshaw. ‘We have to take the risk,’ he replied. ‘We can’t keep running like this. Zhen, lead the way.’

Zipping in front of a bus, Zhen turned the rickshaw off the main road and headed west from the Bund. Connor swung the motorcycle round, rubber burning as the wheels spun. Behind, the bikers were gaining on them. A volley of rounds peppered the sidecar, most ricocheting off Charley’s bulletproof chair, the Kevlar panels once again saving their lives.

‘We need to level the playing field,’ said Charley, reaching back and taking out her last flash-bang. She tossed the grenade on to the road and into the path of the bikers. A second later the stun grenade detonated with a supernova of a flash and a thunderous bang. Subjected to its full force, the lead biker was dazzled by the blinding explosion and rode straight into the rear of a parked car, cartwheeling over the roof to crash-land in a heap on the pavement.

‘One down!’ cried Charley. But the three remaining bikers continued their relentless pursuit. The blast had also attracted the attention of the city’s police force. Lights flashing and siren wailing, a police car pulled out of a side road and gave chase.

‘That’s all we need!’ said Connor, gritting his teeth as he rode the motorcycle across a junction and through another red light. He caught up with Zhen just as she suddenly split left. But a taxi cut in front of Connor, forcing him to ride straight on. His last glimpse of Amir and Zhen was as their rickshaw ducked down an alleyway, pursued by one of the bikers. Connor had no choice but to keep going, accelerating along the road as the last two bikers and the police car hounded him.

‘Where now?’ Connor yelled to Charley, lost without their guide.

‘I think I recognize where we are …’ she replied. ‘The embassy’s down … that road!’

In his determination to escape their pursuers, Connor almost missed it. He hit the left turn too hard and the motorcycle skidded round the corner. The handlebars were at full lock, but still the bike veered over the white line into the wrong lane. Connor had lost all control over the steering. The sidecar started to lift off the ground, threatening to flip the bike into the path of an oncoming bus.

‘We’re going over!’ cried Charley, throwing her body weight into the turn.

Connor leant with her, applying more gas to bring the bike round. At the last second the motorcycle righted itself, its tyres gripped the road and they shot back on to the correct side, clipping the bus and scraping the paintwork.

‘That was close!’ said Charley, checking her wheelchair had survived the encounter.

Now it was a straight run to the embassy. Connor could see the American flag in the distance, the stars and stripes rippling in the breeze. Throttle at the full, he weaved between the cars.

‘We’re going to make it!’ he said, gritting his teeth.

But halfway down Connor spotted the flashing lights of a police roadblock and he was forced to screech to a halt. Further back up the road the two Equilibrium agents made a quick exit before the police car behind braked and blocked any hope of a retreat.

Connor and Charley found themselves trapped. Armed police having them in their sights, they had no option but to surrender.