Lost Worlds by Andrew Lane

his hand. He cried out and tried to push the animal away, but it was locked on to
his palm and wouldn’t let go. Rhino could hear it growling, deep in its throat.
    ‘Sorry,’ he said to the second woman as he snatched her dog. ‘I really do need a matched pair.’
    This one he just pushed at Orange as the man gaped in amazement at what was going on.
    Panicking, the dog fastened its teeth on Orange’s nose.
    Orange screamed: a high-pitched whistle of pure shock.
    Rhino reached out and pushed Blue and Orange in opposite directions. The men stumbled and fell, each one still with a dog latched on to some vital part of his anatomy. Smiling at the two shocked
dog owners, who were staring in disbelief at what was going on, Rhino sprinted away.
    Behind him he could hear snarling, shouting and, if he wasn’t mistaken, the sound of the two women hitting Blue and Orange with their handbags. He didn’t look back. He kept running,
then dodged down a side street.
    He diverted down an alleyway that separated two warehouse-like buildings. There were some plastic bins a few metres down, and he ducked between them. He could feel his breath rasping in his
chest, and his pulse hammering in the arteries of his neck and in his temples. Despite all his training, despite all the exercise he did on a regular basis, sudden exertions like this would always
drain his energy.
    He listened above the sound of his own ragged breathing for the noise of footsteps running after him. There was nothing. Somewhere in the distance he thought he could hear voices raised in
anger, but nobody appeared to be chasing him. Hopefully the two dog-owning women were so busy with Blue and Orange that the two thugs hadn’t had an opportunity to get away. They
wouldn’t dare use weapons. Not on members of the public. That would immediately involve the police.
    He cursed under his breath. His cover was comprehensively blown. He needed to get out of Washington in a hurry.
    The best thing he could do was go somewhere remote – back in England, if he could get to the airport and on to a flight without getting intercepted – and go to ground for a while.
Get out of circulation until the fuss had died down. The way criminal gangs worked, something else would come along to distract their attention. Pretty soon he would be yesterday’s news, and
nobody would waste time or money looking for him.
    Time or money. That was the problem. Rhino had time, but he didn’t have money. Financing these kidnap-rescue operations took a lot of cash, and the profit margin wasn’t that big. If
he wanted to keep going, then he had to take any job that came his way. He couldn’t afford to take a break for too long. And, of course, there were other ex-Special Forces soldiers wandering
around trying to get into the same business. Work came through personal recommendations, and it was time-sensitive. If he was out of the game for a few months, lying low to avoid getting tracked
and caught, then someone else would come along and take the jobs that would have been his. And then, when he got back into the game, it wasn’t just the criminals who would have forgotten
about him. His prospective customers would have done so as well.
    The bottom line was he needed a job that would take him out of circulation for a while, and he needed it fast. But where was that job going to come from?
    ‘Don’t worry,’ Calum said to Tara. ‘They’re playing games with your mind.’ Gecko watched as he typed furiously into his wireless keyboard,
then let out a frustrated breath. ‘Blast it, they’re using an anonymizer. Obvious, I suppose, but I can’t trace the email back to a location.’
    ‘First thing I thought of.’ Tara shrugged. She was trying to look casual, but her face was shadowed with worry. ‘They’re not technological muppets – that much is
certain.’ She glanced from Calum to Gecko and back again. ‘So what exactly is it that I’ve got myself into here? What is it you