Rainfall

could. In this crowd, no one would know where the shots had come from. I fought frantically for space, ducking past three slow-moving old women who were blocking the stairway, and spun left at the bottom of the stairs. There was a concession stand in front of the ticket windows and as I dodged past it I grabbed a palm-sized canned coffee. Hundred and ninety grams. Hard metal edges.

    I shoved my way through the wickets and onto the platform. I was too late — the doors had already closed, and the train was starting to move.

    The platform was crowded, but there was a clear passage alongside the train. I maneuvered into it, glanced back and saw one of Yamaoto’s goons pass the wickets and burst through the crowd into the clear space next to the train.

    I turned and measured the distance. About five meters, closing fast.

    I threw the can like a fastball, aiming for center mass. It went a little high and caught him in the sternum with a thud I could hear even over the noise of the crowd. He went down hard. But his buddy was right behind him, his gun out.

    I spun around. The train was picking up speed.

    I dropped my head and sprinted after it, my breath hammering in and out. I heard a gunshot. Then another.

    Two meters. One.

    I was close enough to reach out and touch the vertical bar at the back corner of the car, but I couldn’t get any closer. For an instant, my speed was perfectly synchronized with the train. Then it started to slip away.

    I gave a wild yell and leaped forward, my fingers outstretched for the bar. For one bad second I thought I’d come up short and felt myself falling — then my hand closed around cold metal.

    My body fell forward and my knees smacked into the back of the train. My feet were dangling just over the tracks. My fingers were slipping off the bar. I looked up, saw a kid in a school uniform staring at me out the back window, his mouth open. Then the train entered the tunnel and I lost my grip.

    I twisted instinctively, getting my left arm under and across my body so I could roll with the impact. Still, I hit the tracks so hard that I actually bounced instead of rolling. There was one enormous shock all down my left side, then a brief sensation of flight. An instant later I felt a dull
whump
! and came to a sudden stop.

    I was on my back, looking up at the ceiling of the subway tunnel. I lay there for a moment, the wind knocked out of me, wiggling my toes, flexing my fingers. Everything seemed to be working.

    Five seconds went by, then another five. I drew in a few hitching breaths.

    What the hell,
I thought.
What the hell did I land on?

    I grunted and sat up. I was on a large sand pile to the left of the tracks. Beside it were two hard-hatted Japanese construction workers, looking at me, their mouths slightly agape.

    Next to the sand pile was a concrete floor that the workers were repairing. They were using the sand to mix cement. I realized that if I had let go of the train even a half second later, I would have landed on concrete instead of a soft pile of sand.

    I slid over to the ground, stood, and began brushing myself off. The shape of my body was imprinted in the sand like something from an over-the-top cartoon.

    The construction workers hadn’t changed their posture. They were still looking at me, mouths still agape, and I realized they were in mild shock at what they had just seen.

    “Ah, sumimasen,”
I began, not knowing what else to say.
“Etto, otearae wa arimasu ka?”
Excuse me, do you have a bathroom?

    They maintained their frozen postures, and I realized that my question had discombobulated them further. Just as well. I saw that I was only a few meters inside the tunnel and started walking out.

    I considered what had happened. Yamaoto’s men must have seen me go into the tunnel hanging on to the back of the train, but not seen me slip, and I was going too fast for them to expect that I’d let go deliberately. So they were figuring that, in three minutes, I would be deposited at Mita station, the end of the line. They must have bolted out of the station to Mita to try to intercept me.

    I had a wild idea.

    I reached into my pocket and pulled out the earpiece I had pocketed before Flatnose and his crew had caught me in the van, slipped it into place. I felt in my pocket for the adhesive-backed transmitter. Still there. But was it still transmitting?

    “Harry? Can you hear me? Talk to me,” I said.

    There was a long pause, and just as I started