The Boy Who Glowed in the Dark

CHAPTER 20

Luo stood near a house thirty meters away from the action. He’d thrown the boomerangs as soon as he’d rounded the corner and had seen what was happening. He was rushing to help the woman and the man overcome the other Russian men but the scene unfolding before him caused him to stop in his tracks.

The boy was chasing the truck.

What was he thinking? The truck was picking up steam but the vehicle’s engine didn’t have much torque. Just like the Japanese cars Luo had driven in Moscow. They were powered by smaller engines that took time to build speed from a standstill. This shortcoming was only magnified in a heavy truck.

The boy covered ten meters to the truck’s bumper in two heartbeats. A narrow metal frame protruded from the bottom of the truck. It was the length of the bumper. A tow-hitch was attached to it, the kind a utility truck might use to attach a generator for emergency repair.

Five strides away from the bumper and on the verge of collision, the boy didn’t slow down. Instead, much to Luo’s amazement, he accelerated as though he’d been catapulted from a slingshot. He slid under the truck and grasped the metal frame. Luo looked for his feet under the truck but couldn’t see them. That meant he’d either found a foothold or was using his stomach muscles to hold his legs in the air. The odds of finding a foothold so quickly seemed low, which suggested the kid was staying alive by performing a gymnastics maneuver. It was among the boldest and most athletic maneuvers Luo had ever witnessed. But no matter how strong he was, the kid would have to find a foothold soon. If he didn’t, he’d fall onto the road and have to pray one of the wheels didn’t roll over his legs.

The boy was the key to the treasure.

Luo sprinted around the back of the house to a parallel street.

He’d flown to Tokyo as soon as he’d finished talking to Denys Melnik. His hotel had arranged for a translator. The latter placed some phone calls to Tokyo hotels on his behalf and discovered that Nadia Tesla and Bobby Kungenook had reservations at the Century Southern Tower in Shibuya. Luo was not surprised. It was just a matter of time until they, too, discovered that answers awaited in Fukushima. Just like Luo, and the men who’d killed Ksenia Melnik. That’s what a treasure did. It lured people.

He’d followed Nadia and the boy on the train to Aizuwakamatsu. His Siberian facial features and Black Beret tradecraft had helped him blend in and avoid detection. He’d stolen a car from the parking lot beside the inn and caught up to the old man’s truck on the highway. When the Global Medical Corps van pulled into the gate to the Zone of Exclusion, Luo drove on. He passed a barricaded entrance via a side street and wove his way through a lightly wooded forest to get inside the Zone. Eventually he spotted the van half a kilometer away. By the time he’d circled to park on the side street, a second truck had arrived and the fight had begun.

Now he would need to do the same in reverse. Luo climbed behind the wheel of the car he’d stolen, shifted into drive, and took off. This time he would not be following civilians and medical personnel. This time he would be following the boy.

And this time he had no idea where he was going.