Manhunt (38 page)

‘Well, somebody told Moscow, that’s for sure, and Simpson or his secret squirrel outfit had to be the conduit, at the very least. Unless there’s a tap on that number you called
him on, of course.’

Richter shrugged. ‘I remember reading somewhere that the world of espionage and counter-espionage was known as the “wilderness of mirrors”, and I’m beginning to see
exactly what the author meant. If you look at it a certain way, any truth can also be a lie, and each reflection shows something slightly different from the original. So who the hell can you
trust?’

‘That’s a bloody good question,’ Dekker said, ‘but you’ll have to work out the answer for yourself. Personally, I don’t think Richard Simpson should be
anywhere near the top of your list, but that’s your decision. More importantly, we need to decide what to do next – though I guess that getting out of Italy is pretty high on your
agenda.’

‘Definitely.’ Raya nodded. ‘I won’t feel safe until we’re in France, and maybe not even then.’ She glanced round the cafe nervously, but saw nothing there to
alarm her.

‘Yes, we need to get over the border,’ Richter agreed, ‘but I don’t want to just drive towards it along an ordinary road, because the Italians will have probably mounted
watchers on most of the border crossings, and once we get stuck in a queue of vehicles, there’s no way out. I know European borders are supposed to be open these days, but because the
Russians have involved the Eyeties, there are almost certainly some kind of checks now in place.’

‘So what can we do?’ Raya asked.

‘We lose one of the cars, and then we split up,’ Richter said, opening a road map on the table in front of him. ‘We’re here.’ He pointed out Roure. ‘The road
we’re sitting beside follows the course of the River Chisone and runs in a semicircle northwards, and finishes up here’ – he pointed to a spot further to the west –
‘just beyond Sestriere, where it joins the main road. That road then becomes the Route Nationale 94 where it crosses the border into France, just east of Briançon.’

Richter paused and glanced at his two companions. Dekker nodded for him to continue.

‘That’s a fairly obvious crossing point for the Italians to be covering, because it’s the main route from Turin to Grenoble, so I’m almost certain they’ll have
manned the border there, looking for Raya of course, and possibly me now as well. We’re probably listed as escaped convicts or murderers, something like that, and they’ll have orders to
check every single car leaving Italy. So that’s why I think we need to split up. As far as I know, they won’t be looking for you, Colin, so there’s no reason why you can’t
just drive across the border in your hire car, though it would be a good idea to lose the sniper rifle and your pistol before you do.’

Dekker didn’t look at all happy with this suggestion. ‘I’ve signed for them,’ he said, ‘and I can’t just dump them.’

‘Sorry, wrong choice of word. We’ll be hanging on to the weapons, but we’ll get them over the border by another route.’

‘How?’

‘See just here,’ Richter pointed, ‘beside this peak called Roche Bernaud? There’s a small place called Bardonecchia, near the tunnel that runs north–south through
the mountain and across the border. There’s a minor road that runs roughly south from that point, across the French border and down to Névache. Then it turns east and south to join the
N94 just east of Briançon. I’m hoping that will be our route out of Italy.’

‘So I drive you two up to Bardonecchia, drop you both there and then drive across the border east of Briançon and pick you up on the other side?’ Dekker asked.

‘Maybe, but I was rather hoping you might be able to take us a bit beyond that, perhaps a little way further up the minor road that crosses the border, but that will depend on what we find
when we get to Bardonecchia. But I certainly think we should leave our car here, and ride in yours from now on, just in case Simpson or somebody has flagged my vehicle, too.’

‘OK,’ Dekker said. ‘That sounds like a plan. And when I drop you two off, you’ll take the rifle and my short with you?’

‘Short?’ Raya asked. ‘What’s a short?’

‘He means his pistol,’ Richter explained, then turned back to Dekker. ‘Exactly. So you should have no trouble at the border, even if the
carabinieri
, or whoever, stop
you and search the car.’

Three minutes later they were on the move. Richter had left the locked Ford on a side street in Roure, with the keys tossed underneath the car, and the three of them were now riding in
Dekker’s hired Peugeot – the car he’d picked up in Toulouse. Richter was in the front, while Raya sat in the back, trying to keep her head low, just in case the Italians had
stationed any
carabinieri
in the area immediately to the east of the border.

Their route took them out of Roure, around the north slopes of Monte Albergian, and then south-west to Sestriere. Leaving the village, the road began twisting and turning its way down hairpin
bends traversing the fairly steep side of the valley, until they finally reached the village of Cesana Torinese, and the junction there with the main road.

‘Beautiful scenery,’ Dekker muttered, as he approached the roundabout.

All around them rose mountain peaks: an artist’s palette of shades of green and brown, grass and trees and rocks, framed by the silver streamers of mountain rivers that tumbled down the
sheer slopes below the white teeth of the mountain tops. It was, by any standards, spectacular.

‘Keep down,’ Dekker ordered, a couple of seconds later, after a glance to his left. ‘Reception committee.’

Raya ducked down in her seat, keeping herself below the level of the windows.

Dekker kept up the commentary as he turned right, and accelerated up the road heading north.

‘Half a dozen
carabinieri
just beyond the roundabout, with two blue and whites. Plus a couple of suits just observing. They’ve pulled over three cars that were obviously
heading for the border, and they’re checking the boots and also the identification of the drivers and passengers. Could be a routine check, of course, but I doubt it.’

‘Just as well you didn’t turn left, then,’ Richter muttered.

‘You got that right.’

As Dekker accelerated, Richter peered cautiously out of the rear window. The Italian police were clearly taking their task seriously. Two of them stood on opposite sides of the road, sub-machine
guns cradled in their arms, and covering the scene, while their colleagues, also armed but with riot shotguns and regulation pistols, carried out the inspections of the vehicles and their
occupants. He glanced at the route map, then made a quick decision.

‘Change of plan now, Colin. I was expecting them to be checking people a lot closer to the border. But, looking at this map, I reckon they’ll have a roadblock on this side of
Bardonecchia, because that way they can cover both the tunnel and the road over the col. I think we need to try to cross somewhere here, before we get too far away from the border. Can you pull
over soon?’

They found a small pull-in on the right-hand side of the road, temporarily empty of other vehicles, and Dekker swung the Peugeot into it and switched off the engine. All three of them climbed
out of the car and stared around.

‘Nice and quiet,’ Dekker remarked.

‘Good.’ Richter looked to the west, in the direction they had to proceed. The mountain rose quite steeply in front of them, riven with deep and inhospitable-looking valleys that also
rose steeply towards the west. He had hoped they’d be able to follow a curving route around the mountain, keeping to more or less at the same level, until they started the descent towards the
minor road on the French side of the border. But now clearly that wasn’t an option, for it would be a long, exhausting slog over very uneven ground, and climbing for most of the way.

‘How far is it?’ Dekker asked.

‘If this map’s accurate, about seven or eight miles. That’s in a straight line, so maybe ten miles actually walking.’

‘Ten miles?’ Raya echoed. ‘Over that sort of ground? That’s going to take us hours.’

‘Most of the day,’ Richter agreed, ‘but I don’t think we’ve got much option.’

‘We can’t crash through the border, that’s for sure,’ Dekker said, ‘if every crossing point’s got the same sort of police presence. Two pistols and a sniper
rifle aren’t much use at close quarters against sub-machine guns and shotguns. They’d cut us to pieces. And if, by some lucky chance, we did manage to shoot our way through,
they’d put out a Europe-wide watch order for us, because we would be bound to have wounded or even killed some of the
carabinieri
.’

‘What about hiring an off-road vehicle?’ Raya suggested.

Richter shook his head. ‘A good idea, but we’d probably have to drive back to Turin to get one, and that’s about sixty miles away. Getting there, finding one and getting back
here could easily take three or four hours. But the bigger problem is that we’re trying not to be noticed, and if the Italians have any sense they’ll be flying helicopter patrols along
the border on the lookout for us. If we’re on foot, we can just lie flat and hide. But you can’t hide a Jeep.’

‘On the other hand,’ Dekker said, ‘you’re a pilot, aren’t you?’

Richter nodded.

‘So how about flying over?’

‘Good plan, apart from the fact that we don’t have an aircraft.’

‘Ah,’ Dekker said, ‘but I think I know where you can find one. On the way up to Roure I passed a windsock on the right-hand side of the road, and there was a kind of cleared
area in a field beyond that, and a barn. Five gets you ten, one of the local farmers has a Cessna or something parked there.’

Richter considered this suggestion for maybe two seconds. Then he nodded. ‘Sounds good to me,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Of course,’ Dekker pointed out, settling in the driver’s seat and starting the engine again, ‘I don’t know if there actually
is
an aircraft inside that
barn. It’s always possible the farmer’s popped over to Milan or somewhere, so we’ll find the nest is empty.’

‘It’s still worth taking the chance. It’s a better option than a six-hour walk, that’s for sure.’

Dekker drove back down the N94 towards the roadblock but, as he approached the roundabout that marked the junction with the road to Sestriere and on to Roure, he tensed.

‘One of the
carabinieri
is staring at me,’ he muttered to Richter, who was now crouching down in the back of the car, with Raya beside him.

‘Maybe he fancies you,’ Richter muttered, in a weak attempt at humour.

There were about half a dozen cars halted on the right-hand side of the road, waiting to pass through the checkpoint, with
carabinieri
inspecting the contents of their boots and also the
identification of the occupants. Other Italian police officers were scanning the approaching traffic – which at that moment consisted only of the car Dekker was driving.

As Dekker watched, the officer called out something to a colleague, then stepped forwards, raising his arm.

‘He’s waving a hand at me. I think he wants us to stop.’

‘Don’t for Christ’s sake do that,’ Richter muttered.

‘Don’t worry, I won’t. Now hang on. This could get bumpy and noisy.’

Dekker didn’t have a lot of options, so he did about the only thing he could. As the Italian police officer headed down the road towards him, Dekker completely ignored both him and his
signals, simply indicated left and accelerated around the tail end of the short line of waiting cars, then swung east, around the roundabout and into the other road.

Whistles shrilled behind him as he floored the accelerator pedal, and powered his car into the centre of Cesana Torinese.

Monday

Piemonte, Italy

‘That was subtle,’ Richter said, sitting up in his seat and staring out of the rear window.

Behind the accelerating Peugeot, he could see uniformed figures running towards the blue and white official
carabinieri
cars.

‘No bloody option. You any good with a rifle?’

‘Not as good as you are. But I can drive.’

‘You might have to, then,’ Dekker said tightly. ‘Let’s put some distance between us and them. While I do that, get that rifle assembled, just in case we have to shoot our
way out of this.’

Richter unsnapped the catches on the case Dekker had laid on the floor in front of the rear seats, and took out the weapons’ component parts. He’d never seen this particular model
before, but he was familiar with rifles from his military career. Within a couple of minutes he’d assembled the rifle, attached the telescopic sight, and loaded a full magazine of subsonic
7.62-millimetre ammunition.

‘Mean piece of kit,’ he remarked.

‘Ideal tool for the job,’ Dekker said, ‘and that’s the point.’

Richter again looked through the rear window. They’d almost cleared the edge of Cesana Torinese and were starting the climb up the slope, but the road behind them appeared to be empty.
‘Where are they?’ he wondered. ‘And how many?’

‘Two cars,’ Dekker said, ‘and each at least two-up. They’re about five hundred yards behind us.’

‘We need to stop them now,’ Richter said. ‘I remember that the road’s pretty straight beyond Sestriere, so our best chance is on this twisty section.’

‘Are you going to kill them?’ Raya asked. She hadn’t spoken since Dekker had avoided the roadblock.

‘I bloody hope not. We just have to stop them, or at least slow them down for long enough to get away.’

‘That’ll do,’ Dekker said, pointing ahead. He slewed the car off the road and onto a patch of rough ground to the right, sliding the gear lever into neutral and pulling the
Peugeot to a stop in a cloud of dust. He left the engine running and jumped out.

Richter was just as fast, pushing open the rear door and immediately handing Dekker the sniper rifle.

‘You drive,’ Dekker instructed, then dropped to the ground, beside the front of the car. He rested the AWS rifle on its bipod and, through the telescopic sight, stared back along the
road, waiting for a target to appear. The road was more or less straight until a bend perhaps a hundred yards away. Any pursuing vehicles would have to drive around that corner, and doing so would
bring them directly into his sights.