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“Han’s man Gao is with him.”
“Throw your weapons out and surrender,” Oni’s voice boomed across the rooftop.
“So you can frame us for murdering the Japanese Prime Minister?” Joe shouted back. “No thanks.”
“Then come up and fight,” Oni said. “Or wait for the robots to come up and tear you apart. It makes no difference to me.”
“He does have us at a disadvantage,” Nagano said.
“And he’s not wrong,” Kurt said. “The situation is only going to get worse when the robots arrive.”
“So we charge him and take our chances,” Joe suggested.
“I thought you were against suicidal plans,” Kurt said.
“In principle,” Joe said. “But we’re running out of options.”
“I have an idea,” Kurt told him. “Keep him talking. Fire a shot his way every once in a while to keep his attention on you.” As Kurt spoke, he held up the sword. “I’m going to flank him . . . samurai-style.”
As Kurt moved off, Joe crawled up the slab and triggered off a single round as a conversation starter. “You don’t have much to hide behind up there,” he pointed out. “Out in the open and all exposed. All I need is one good shot and you’re a dead man.”
“You’ll never get that lucky,” Oni laughed. “But if you want to come up and play, I’ll allow it. I’ll even let you get to your feet and give you a fighting chance.”
“I suspect he’s probably lying,” Nagano said.
Joe laughed. “And I suspect you’re right.”
In response to the offer, Joe held the gun over the opening and fired again.
* * *
• • •
AS JOE distracted Ushi-Oni, Kurt rushed to the far side of the building. A brief glimpse outside told him the army of six-legged robots were surrounding the place and crawling inside.
He saw at least a dozen. There would be no slow, methodical search this time. Just a swarming attack.
“Time is not on our side,” Kurt whispered. “Time for desperate measures.”
Climbing out through a window, Kurt made it to a ledge on the side of the building. Inching along the ledge, he came to the rusted fire escape that he and Joe had declined to use on the way down.
He could hear Joe shouting at Ushi-Oni.
“If the robots fill us full of lead, that will be hard to explain to the coroner,” Joe shouted.
“We’ll just dump your bodies in the channel and let the sharks have you,” Oni replied. “The police can look for you forever. It makes no difference to me.”
Kurt reached out for the fire escape and grabbed the railing. The structure swayed as he hooked one leg over the railing. He waited for Joe to snap off another round.
With the gunshot echoing, Kurt pulled himself onto the fire escape and did his best to steady it. The metal stairs creaked and groaned, but they didn’t collapse.
He went up. Moving with deliberate care. One arm, one foot, the next arm and the next foot. He carried only the sword.
As he got near the top, the stairs began to pull away from the wall. The upper anchors were completely loose, just resting in small holes of eroded concrete. Only a length of wire, wound in a figure eight from the railing to the wall, kept the whole stairway from breaking away.
“Definitely not up to code,” he whispered, reaching past the railing and grabbing the wall. Finding a handhold, he eased the fire escape toward the building until it made contact with the wall.
Out on the roof, the taunting continued.
