The Eye of God by James Rollins Page B

moving.”
    Ducking his head, Gray passed beneath the causeway. He needed to shake the gunmen left behind. Reaching the far side, he crossed back to the beach wall next to the bridge and clambered over it. The snarl of traffic was slowly clearing.
    Taking advantage of the bedlam of honking horns and bumper-to-bumper vehicles, Gray kept low and maneuvered across the street. To his left, a gunman searched the beach. Another one hopped over the wall to get an angle of fire under the bridge.
    Gray rushed across the road and into the densely packed maze of streets and alleyways. Kowalski followed, huffing heavily next to him.
    “Seichan?” Kowalski asked.
    “They didn’t immediately shoot her,” he answered.
    Thank God for that.
    They continued for another quarter mile, mostly paralleling the beachfront, heading away from the causeway. The streets were still crowded, but not as thickly as earlier in the night. Still, in a sea of Asian faces, the two Americans stuck out too prominently. It would not be hard for the hunters to track them.
    Knowing that, they dared not stop moving.
    “What’s the plan?” Kowalski asked.
    Until now, Gray had been running on pure adrenaline, but Kowalski was right. They needed to think strategically.
    Whoever had staged this attack had cleverly assumed they might make a break for the other ferry terminal. With the causeway being the closest access to the other island, it was easy enough to set up the ambush at this choke point and wait for their targets to come to them.
    “They’ll certainly be watching the ferry terminal,” Gray said, planning aloud. “That means we’ll have to find another means to reach Hong Kong.”
    “What about Seichan? Are we just going to leave her?”
    “We have no choice. If the gangs have her, we don’t have the firepower to go after her, even if we knew where she was being taken. And it’s not as if we can move about Macau inconspicuously.”
    “So we run?”
    For now.
    Gray had slowly sidled back toward the waterfront. He nodded to a marina a few blocks away. “We need a boat.”
    He shifted into the flow of carousing partiers still cruising along the beachfront, Kowalski in tow. Once they reached the marina, he turned into it. Lanterns decorated the waters around the moored yachts and motorboats. They marched along the docks until they found a sleek midnight-blue speedboat being prepped by a middle-aged couple, who from their accents appeared to be British expats, a husband and wife, likely on their way home after the festival.
    Gray stepped over to them. “Excuse me.”
    The two stopped in midargument.
    Gray grinned sheepishly as they looked over. He ran fingers through his hair as if his next words pained him to admit.
    “I was wondering if you were heading back to Hong Kong and might be willing to help out a pair of guys who lost their shirts playing pai gow. We don’t even have enough left over for a ferry ticket back to Kowloon.”
    The man straightened, clearly suspicious, but also a little drunk. “You’re Yanks,” he said, with no less surprise than if they’d been Lilliputians. “Normally I would say yes, my good chaps, but you see—”
    Gray showed them his pistol, while Kowalski parted his duster to reveal his AK-47.
    “How about now?” Gray asked.
    The man sagged as if the air had been let out of him. “You know my wife will never let me live this down.”
    She crossed her arms. “I told you we should have left sooner.”
    The husband shrugged.
    After tying and gagging them aboard a neighboring dark yacht, Gray chugged their craft out of the marina. Once clear, he opened the throttle and set off across the dark waters toward Hong Kong.
    As the lights of Macau receded behind them, Gray stepped away from the helm. “Take the wheel.”
    Kowalski, a former seaman, gladly took his place, rubbing his palms in anticipation. “Let’s see what this baby can do.”
    That normally would have worried Gray, but he had greater