Ballistic Force(97)

Cursing, Euikon grabbed the gun and bolted after Park, who had scrambled down the front steps and broken into a mad run from the mobile home.

“Stop him!” Park shouted to a handful of workers lingering near the launch tower. “He’s trying to kill me!”

None of the workers was armed, however, and at the sight of the Ruger in Euikon’s hand, they froze in place. The gunner glared at them as he rushed their way.

“Get in my way and you’re dead!” he snarled.

The men heeded the warning and shrank back, giving the assassin a wide berth. Euikon raced past them, then stopped long enough to draw bead on Park, who was headed for the same doorway through which he’d reentered the structure an hour before. Park had the presence of mind to zigzag as he ran, however, making himself a difficult target. The first shot missed by inches and a second slug barely grazed Park’s thigh, drawing blood but failing to slow him.

Once outside, Park saw Euikon’s motorcycle next to the parked jeep, where the guard was still standing, now smoking a cigarette. Park waved the guard away and slid into the front seat of the 4-wheeler. The keys were in the ignition and as he turned on the engine he told the guard, “The man who just came here is a traitor! Kill him when he comes out!”

The guard fumbled with his carbine as Park threw the jeep into gear and sped forward, veering to his right and clipping the motorcycle, knocking it onto its side.

Euikon appeared in the doorway seconds later. The guard was taking aim at him but the private fired first, putting a .22 slug through other man’s chest. Mortally wounded, the guard slumped to his knees, discharging an errant shot from his carbine.

“Not smart,” Euikon told the man, pistol-whipping him in the face before yanking the motorcycle upright and jumping aboard. One of the foot pegs had been bent but the bike still ran, and soon, forsaking his helmet, the private was back in pursuit of the fleeing contractor.

The frenzied roar of the two vehicles’ engines echoed loudly off the surrounding facades as they raced through the empty city. The motorcycle was the faster machine and within a few blocks Euikon had begun to close in on Park. Park’s only advantage was his familiarity with the layout of the ghost town, and several times he was able to outmaneuver his pursuer by making last-second turns into narrow side alleys. In each case, however, Euikon was able to backtrack and quickly make up the lost ground.

Park finally realized that Kijongdong wasn’t enough of a maze for him to lose his pursuer once and for all. After cornering one of the periphery buildings, he turned away from the city and detoured onto a dirt road that led into the surrounding countryside. He pressed the accelerator to the floor and bound recklessly down the road. He could still see the lone headlight of the motorcycle in the rearview mirror, however, and it was clear that Euikon was once again gaining on him. He knew he had to think of something, quick, or else it would soon be over for him.

Fortunately the contractor knew area surrounding Kijongdong as well he knew the city itself, and as he approached a bend in the road, Park switched off his headlights and eased off the gas. Once he’d rounded the bend, he veered off the road and slammed on his brakes. He was still skidding across the gravel shoulder when he threw the jeep into reverse. As soon as he came to a stop, he promptly accelerated, backing out onto the road so that he was facing the way he’d just come. He could see the beam of the motorcycle’s headlight as it approached the curve. Park waited until the last possible second, then, just as Euikon rounded the bend, he switched on his brights.

The jeep’s headlights blinded Euikon momentarily, and it was all he could do to keep control of the bike as he turned sharply to his right to avoid crashing into the other vehicle. Overshooting the shoulder, he crashed through a thicket of wild bramble. Thorn-laden branches slapped at him as he applied the brakes and fought to maintain control of the bike. He managed to stop just short of a thick-trunked acacia rising up through the bushes. Cursing, blood trickling down his face where the thorns had torn at his flesh, Euikon slowly turned the bike around.

“You’ll have to do better than that,” he fumed as he opened up the throttle and used his left forearm to shield himself from the thorns as he headed back toward the road.

By now Park had opened up a quarter-mile lead on his pursuer. He’d turned his lights off again, trying to see his way as best he could in the dim light of the moon, which drifted in and out of the cloud cover. Up ahead he could see the shadowy outline of Kijongdong, but he had no intention of returning to the phantom city. Instead, once he reached the nearest crossroad, he turned right, heading down into a deep, wooded valley. He could only hope that the surrounding trees would conceal him from view of his pursuer. He couldn’t see the bike, but he could hear its engine and assumed that the rider had managed to extricate himself from the bramble.