With his backpack over his shoulders, Bruce lowered himself with a rope from his kitchen window, down into an air shaft that ran through the center of his building.

As he descended past the window below, his downstairs neighbor caught sight of him. It was Martina from the factory. Bruce silently shushed her before she could scream.

Up in his apartment, Bruce heard Cachorro stop barking. He hoped the commandos hadn't killed him. He also heard what they were saying to each other. "Target's on the move," one of them had reported, and then a moment later, "He's on the ground."

Footsteps thumped above as the commandos chased after Bruce—but he had faked them out. He waited in Martina's apartment, crouched by the door, until they were gone into the mazelike alleys of the favela. Below, on the street, he heard someone gunning a powerful engine. Probably a military support vehicle. This had to be an American operation, even though at least one of the voices coming from upstairs had sounded British.

When it had been quiet for a minute, Bruce nodded at Martina, and she nervously opened her front door and glanced outside. She shook her head; nothing out there.

With no time to even thank her, Bruce fled the apartment and sprinted down the stairs. When reached the front door, he slipped outside and hustled at a controlled walk down the street, with the hood of his sweatshirt over his head.

As Bruce hurried past the apartment building's alley, he caught a glimpse of the black van and black-clad commando guarding it. Unfortunately the commando saw him, too.

Bruce broke into a sprint, turning down the street and sprinting into the thick of the town. He threaded through the nighttime crowd in the slum. His heart rate was rising, inching up past eighty beats per minute. He was worried about the hulking monster that was always straining to get free. He had to stay calm. Otherwise everyone could be in danger.

Behind him, the commandos were in hot pursuit. Bruce zipped through alleys and worked his way downhill, ducking under hanging laundry, leaping over baskets, careening across courtyards. Blonsky and his partner followed close behind, correctly guessing Bruce's turns through the catacombs of alleys.

When Bruce reached a paved street with fewer people, he bolted at full speed. He had to stop short when his way ended at a steep hillside overlooking another neighborhood, with a sheer drop to the houses below. Bruce jumped onto the nearest roof and ran across the tops of the squat buildings, jumping from one roof to the next. His feet pounded on the rusty tin, and shouts of complaint bellowed up from the occupants inside.

Blonsky and his partner reached the hillside a few seconds later, in time to see Bruce jumping from house to house. Blonsky scanned the area, looking for a faster way down. The tallest soldier and the blue-eyed commando arrived, then leaped down to follow Bruce across the roofs.

Meanwhile, the black van circled around the slum at top speed to catch Bruce from the other side of town. Ross and Sparr stayed glued to their video monitors, watching the chaotic greenlit images of the chase.

Bruce reached an area thick with laundry, and the flapping sheets almost obscured the edge of a roof. He whipped through the cloth, jumping down to another level of roofs, and his hood was knocked back. He continued to barrel across the tops of the rough homes.

The two commandos following him hit the same patch of clotheslines, but the tall soldier missed the blind jump. He fell hard, rolled to a standing position, and redirected his route through the alleys, quickly catching up on ground level.

Bruce reached the end of the residential area and hopped down from the last roof into a party area of bars and late-night clubs. The streets here were bustling with drunken revelers; it would be easier to disappear. But he had to stop. His pulse was hammering, up toward 170, and that was monster territory. Pressing himself into a rack of empty bottles at the back of a restaurant, Bruce worked himself through a quick set of mental exercises. He knew he didn't have much time. As soon as he got it down toward 150, he looked out—to see one of the commandos.

He raised his gun and fired. Bruce heard the dart go by, too slow to be a bullet. They were trying to tranquilize him. He launched himself into the midst of the crowd, turned right, getting a step on the pursuing commandos again.

Blonsky charged after Bruce but bumped into a tight knot of people celebrating that slowed him down.

Bruce checked his pulse monitor: 160 ... 165 ... He was in trouble. His pulse was too high, and he was really sweating now. He veered into a dark alley, rushed around a corner, and popped out onto a side street, where he almost ran headlong into the opened side door of the black van.

Inside the van, Ross looked up, and for a dizzying moment, he locked eyes with Bruce. It was the first time they'd seen each other in five years.

Then Bruce broke into motion again and charged across the street in front of the van, launching into another alley.

Bruce lurched through the narrow street, breathing hard. When the alley ended, he took a hard right down a busy, wide street, filled with restaurants. Bruce glanced back to see if anyone was following him, and he slammed right into a group of four guys. Bruce recognized them as the tough guys from the bottling plant, led by the one who'd been harassing Martina. His stomach sank.

The guys were rowdy and looking for a fight. And for them, no one better than Bruce could have shown up at that exact moment.

The leader of the group looked angrily at Bruce and took a wild swing at him.

Bruce dodged the leader's attack by using his well-practiced aikido passing move, grabbing the guy's sleeve and using his own momentum to send him crashing into a pile of stinking trash.

Before his friends could react, Bruce ran for it, scurrying into another side alley.

The leader pulled himself out of the trash, and then he and his friends scrambled to chase Bruce.

At the end of the alleyway, Bruce found himself outside the bottling factory. With little time to think, he raced toward it. Seconds later, the tough guys showed up outside the factory, but Bruce was nowhere to be seen. Then the leader heard the faint sound of rattling metal and glanced over to see the security chain swinging on the factory's back door. Soon they were headed straight for the factory, too.

At the same time, the commandos were stealthily hunting for Bruce in the streets: They knew he couldn't be far. Blonsky climbed back onto a low-hanging roof and surveyed the town. He spotted one of the tough guys slipping through the loosely chained back gate of the factory.

"Where is he?" General Ross demanded over the comlink.

"Target acquired," Blonsky reported. pd/Er8HWTajxLHtusb5yvASuVYOmlejLwTjvZfKPs/6bj/DrB6mjPD02CxwQWIB0