Mahmoud gunned the bike between cars, blasting the horn to scatter people from their path. He steered around a camel with a screaming tourist stuck in its saddle, and shot the motorbike into an alley.

Clinging to her brother, Yasmin looked over her shoulder to see the cops trying to follow, angling between vehicles to the fury of drivers. One cop had already been cut off, his machine screeching, caught hopelessly between the fender of a BMW and the bumper bar of a tour bus. But Jackal was through the dense traffic, silver sunglasses glinting, mad grimace on his face, with the remaining three of his gang close behind him.

‘Go! Go! Go!’ Yasmin urged, holding on tighter as Mahmoud accelerated.

Walls flashed by. Eyes peered from dark doorways. Houses exhaled cooking aromas. Mahmoud zipped around a donkey cart, the driver smiling toothlessly at Yasmin. Their bike roared by a cafe’s empty outside tables and they just avoided smacking into a burning mini-van as they sped around a blind corner. But when Yasmin looked back, she saw Jackal and his convoy of thugs mimicking Mahmoud’s every move.

Yasmin didn’t know what they’d do if Jackal and his men turned on their sirens. To anyone on the streets, it would look like she and her brother were bad guys fleeing from the cops! But the lack of sirens made Yasmin wonder if Jackal didn’t want to draw too much attention. Otherwise he’d be calling those helicopters hovering over Giza to join in the chase.

At least he can’t risk shooting me, she thought. I’m no good to him dead. I hope.

Glancing back, Yasmin was glad to see one of Jackal’s men stuck in the middle of a small herd of goats that had stampeded from a laneway.

‘Lean with me!’ shouted Mahmoud. Yasmin did and he angled them low around another corner. When he righted the machine, they were zooming along a garbage-strewn street beneath ugly concrete apartment buildings.

Mahmoud didn’t slow or stop as they approached a major boulevard, even though its two southbound lanes were bumper-to-bumper with cars. Instead, he sped up.

‘Hang on!’ he called over his shoulder.

Yasmin clung to him for her life as Mahmoud pulled the bike up onto its back wheel and jumped it onto a car bonnet. Even as it crunched beneath their weight, her brother popped another wheelie and launched them onto the hood of the next car. Its driver screaming, he hopped the bike down onto the green nature strip.

Amid horns and shouts, he revved wildly, scattering pigeons and onlookers. A second later they shot across the northbound lanes, just missing a motorcycle taxi, before disappearing into the shadows of a side street.

Barely able to breathe, let alone believe she was still alive, Yasmin cast a glance backwards. Jackal was still in the traffic, angrily shouting at drivers to move, his men not going anywhere on their bikes.

Yasmin allowed herself a quick grin, hoping they’d lose Jackal and his thugs once and for all as they sped towards the Nile.

But what she saw next shocked her. The detective and his men had left their bikes and were running up and over cars. Just before she and Mahmoud rounded a corner, Yasmin glimpsed her pursuers holding up their guns and badges, ordering a group of men stopped at the traffic lights to give up their motorbikes.

Yasmin gasped as the horrible truth dawned on her—Jackal wasn’t going to give up easily … or maybe ever.