Manhunt (39 page)

‘I can hear an engine,’ Richter said, climbing into the driver’s seat and strapping himself in. By changing places with Dekker, they’d be able to drive away as quickly as
possible, and that would leave the SAS officer able to use the rifle while the vehicle was moving, though hopefully it wouldn’t be necessary.

Seconds later, the first
carabinieri
car raced around the corner and headed straight towards them, a second vehicle following close behind it.

Dekker peered through the telescopic sight, adjusted his aim slightly, and then squeezed the trigger of the rifle.

There was a crack – sounding to Richter no louder than the report of a .22 hunting rifle – as the subsonic round fired, and instantly the leading car slammed to a halt as its
right-hand front tyre exploded with a bang that was clearly audible even from where they were watching.

Dekker worked the rifle’s bolt, chambering another round, and fired again almost immediately. The second car pursuing them also lurched sideways, as its left front tyre received similar
treatment.

‘That’ll do,’ Dekker said, standing up. ‘Now let’s get the hell out of here before they call in the cavalry.’

The moment Dekker sat down in the passenger seat, Richter lifted his foot off the clutch and accelerated away, the car bouncing over the rough ground before he reached the tarmac and headed down
the road towards Sestriere.

‘I think that’s called burning our boats,’ he said, keeping one eye on both rear-view mirrors.

From behind came the sudden crackle of submachine-gun fire, as one of the
carabinieri
opened fire at the speeding Peugeot, but none of the bullets reached them.

‘We’re pretty much out of range already,’ Dekker said. ‘Just keep going.’

Seconds later, as a second automatic weapon opened up behind them, Richter drove around a bend that placed the side of a hill between them and their pursuers. For the moment, they were safe.

Richter barely slowed down as they drove through Sestriere, whose streets were largely empty, and as soon as they’d cleared the edge of the village, he accelerated hard along the
straighter and more level stretch of road that ran along the side of the mountain, towards Pragelato.

‘We must be clear of them by now,’ Raya said. ‘Can’t we slow down?’

‘No.’ Richter shook his head firmly. ‘It’s not the Italian police behind us that I’m worried about, but the roadblocks they might be setting up somewhere in front,
if those
carabinieri
have radioed ahead.’

‘And they will have,’ Dekker added.

‘I’m just hoping most of their people will be concentrated fairly close to the Italian side of the border, so we might be keeping ahead of them.’ Richter glanced across at
Dekker. ‘And I’m not quite sure what we’re going to do if you were wrong, and that wasn’t a hangar you saw. Or even if you were right, but there’s no aircraft
there.’

Dekker shrugged. ‘I know what I saw,’ he said, ‘but I’ve no idea what’s inside that building.’

It took them over half an hour to reach Roure, checking out for
carabinieri
all the way, but without seeing a sign of any. Once they’d cleared the southern end of the village Dekker
started peering over to his left.

‘How close was it, exactly?’ Richter asked, still driving as fast as he could.

‘I can’t remember. It was just something I noticed as I drove along this stretch of road.’

They passed through another village, named Perosa Argentina, and then another called Pinasca, and about a mile beyond it Dekker suddenly pointed.

‘There you go,’ he said.

On the opposite side of the road stood a wooden pole from which a windsock hung down limply, and beyond that a well-mowed area running along the centre of a field. To Richter, it looked about
five or six hundred yards long, which suggested it was used by quite a small aircraft. And he hadn’t flown off a grass airfield since the days when he’d been at the Royal Naval College
in Dartmouth, doing his flying grading in a Chipmunk at Roborough Airfield near Plymouth.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s take a look inside that barn over there. At least that’ll get us off the road.’

A narrow track ran down one side of the field, past the barn, presumably leading to other farm buildings or maybe even the farmhouse itself. Richter swung the car across the road and bounced
along the track’s uneven and heavily rutted surface, which was more suitable for a four-by-four or a tractor than a saloon car. There was a turn-off behind the barn, and he pulled into it and
stopped the Peugeot close to the building. It wasn’t completely hidden from view of the road, but wouldn’t easily be noticed.

The barn was partly brick, the masonry extending about halfway up the sides and rear of the building, with wooden panelling above that. There was a side door secured with a padlock, but the
double front doors had no visible locks at all, so they were presumably secured by internal bolts. The padlock looked strong and new, but the wood that the hasp was screwed into was soft, and
within five minutes Dekker’s pocket knife had loosened it enough to free the screws. He glanced round, pulled open the door, and the three of them stepped inside the building.

The only light penetrating the interior came from the now open side door, and the sudden contrast with the bright daylight outside made it difficult to see. But, through the gloom, Richter had
no trouble identifying a light aircraft parked in the middle of the floor.

It was a single-engined, low-wing monoplane, basically white with a stripe running down the side of the fuselage, in three different shades of blue. The engine drove a three-bladed propeller,
and it had a retractable tricycle undercarriage, a single door on the right-hand side, and four seats.

‘It looks almost new,’ Dekker observed. ‘Is it?’

‘Far from it.’ Richter laughed shortly. ‘That’s a Piper Arrow, and it’s probably at least twenty-five years old – maybe as much as forty. Don’t forget,
aircraft don’t show their age the ways cars do. Piper have been making light aircraft that look pretty much the same as this for half a century, and most of them are still flying.’

‘So how do you know it’s that old?’ Raya asked.

‘One big clue. The Arrow changed from a conventional rudder and tailplane to a T-tail in the late seventies – in 1978 or 1979, I think – but this aircraft still has the
original layout, which means it had to have been made before 1980. In fact, this model’s been around since about ’67, so it could be as old as that.

‘Bit of a flying antique, then. Is it safe?’

‘Yes. All aircraft have to be checked on a regular basis, and that includes stuff like compulsory engine overhauls, at specified intervals, so they’re much better maintained than
cars or trucks.’

‘And they’d need to be,’ Dekker remarked, ‘because if your car engine blows up, you don’t fall ten thousand feet out of the sky and crash to the ground in a ball of
flame.’

‘Not a fan of light aircraft, then, Colin?’

‘Not really, no. The more wings and engines and pilots the better, as far as I’m concerned.’

‘This was your idea,’ Richter reminded him, ‘not mine.’

‘Yeah, and I’m beginning to have second thoughts about it. Have you ever flown something like this before?’

‘Not for a few years,’ Richter said, ‘but yes, I have. Until a few weeks ago I was tooling around the sky in a Harrier, and I promise you this will be a hell of a lot easier to
fly. And, right now, I don’t think we have much choice.’

He strode across to the aircraft’s door, pulled it open, climbed inside, and sat down in the left-hand seat.

‘No ignition switch?’ Dekker asked.

‘As a matter of fact there is, but the key’s still in it. The hangar’s supposed to provide the security, not what’s inside it. And not everyone can steal an aircraft.
It’s not like nicking some Ford parked on the street.’

Richter checked the instruments, particularly the fuel gauge, then climbed out again.

‘What’re you doing?’ Dekker asked.

‘Basic airmanship,’ Richter replied. ‘External checks first, then pre-start checks, then all the rest of them.’

‘We don’t have time for that. We need to get out of here.’

‘Then we
make
time. I’d rather spend the rest of my days in an Italian prison than end up as a red smear on the side of some mountain because I forgot to remove all the
control locks.’

But, even so, it didn’t take long, because it wasn’t a big aircraft and there wasn’t a lot to check. Within a couple of minutes, Richter was back in the pilot’s seat and
busy checking the flying controls for full and free movement. He noted that the altimeter was showing an altitude of around 2,100 metres, which probably indicated the height above sea level of the
grass strip outside. He didn’t touch the sub-scale to alter it, because he knew he would need some indication of his altitude in case they ran into cloud or bad weather.

‘OK,’ he said, after a few moments, ‘we’re ready. Raya, get in the back, please. Colin, those doors at the front of the building should slide sideways on runners. You
open them up, while I start the engine.’

‘About time,’ Dekker muttered, then trotted over to the double doors. He pulled open the bolts securing them at top and bottom, then pushed sideways on the left-hand door. Just as it
started to move, he stepped back into the hangar and pointed silently over towards the roadway outside.

Richter peered through the windscreen and the open door and cursed silently. Two
carabinieri
cars, their blue and white colour scheme making them quite unmistakable, had stopped near the
entrance to the track that led down to the small hangar, and a handful of officers were standing beside them, some talking on mobile phones, others just gazing around. They weren’t actually
focusing on the hangar, as far as he could tell, but that situation would change as soon as he started the Piper’s engine. It all depended on whether they would associate the departing
aircraft with the fugitives they were looking for. And Richter guessed they probably would.

Dekker pushed open the other door. Both moved almost silently on well-oiled tracks, and his actions so far didn’t seem to have attracted the attention of the Italian police officers.

‘There are chocks around the main wheels, Colin,’ Richter called out. ‘Pull them clear, then get on board.’

The moment Dekker had closed the single door of the aircraft, Richter started the ignition sequence. The Lycoming engine turned over noisily, coughed twice and then caught, settling down to a
reassuringly steady roar, the sound grossly magnified by the walls of the hangar.

The effect of the sudden noise was immediate. Half of the
carabinieri
jumped into one of the cars, switched on the lights and sirens, and turned it down the lane leading towards the
hangar.

‘Cat and pigeons,’ Dekker muttered. ‘You want me to slow them down a bit?’

‘Not unless you have to,’ Richter said. ‘Belt in, both of you, and if you know any good gods, this would be an excellent time to pick one and start praying.’

He pushed the throttle forward gently, in order to start the Piper moving. As soon as the wing tips cleared the hangar doors, he increased the power setting and sent the little aircraft skidding
across the grass towards the nearer end of the basic runway.

‘Aren’t you supposed to take off into wind?’ Dekker asked, gesturing towards the windsock, which was now moving lazily, but pointing in the general direction Richter was
heading.

‘You just concentrate on the shooting and let me do the flying.’

The
carabinieri
vehicle had almost reached the hangar, and the turn-off beside it, when the Piper reached the near edge of the short-cropped grass. Dekker watched as the officers piled
out of it. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but their gestures were quite unmistakable.

‘I think they know we’re in this aircraft,’ he said urgently. ‘They’re going to start shooting any time now, so getting ourselves airborne is probably a good
idea.’

‘I’m doing it,’ Richter snapped, engaging full flap and lining up the Piper along the grass strip ahead of them.

The
carabiniere
driver was now sounding his horn in a long, continuous blare of sound, easily audible even over the roar of the Piper’s Lycoming engine.

‘Now they’ve spotted the Peugeot,’ Dekker said, looking back through the side window of the aircraft.

The other car lurched to a halt beside the hangar and its doors swung open. Grey-clad officers spilled out, weapons in hand.

Palazzo Margherita, Via Vittorio Veneto, Rome, Italy

‘There’s just been an incident near the border,’ Clayton Richards said, putting down his desk phone and standing up.

‘Whereabouts? And what sort of incident?’ Westwood asked.

Richards strode over to the map. ‘Near Sestriere, just here.’ He pointed at a curving minor road that lay to the west of Turin. ‘Our contact in the
carabinieri
has
reported that shots were fired at police vehicles, but we’ve no reports of casualties at the moment. It happened about fifty minutes ago, and apparently the
carabinieri
are now in
pursuit of a vehicle with at least two people in it.’

‘That could be it,’ Westwood said, after a moment. ‘At least, it’s the first report of anything happening that sounds likely. I’ll scramble the U2 out of Aviano and
see what that can detect. And I’ll also check with Langley and find out if any of the KH-12 birds were within range at the time this happened.’

Piemonte, Italy

The Piper was now accelerating quickly along the grass strip, with the throttle fully open. Richter was controlling the direction with the rudder pedals, and starting to
ease back on the control yoke as the aircraft’s speed increased. The little aircraft banged and crashed around on the uneven surface, as the wheels hit humps and dips, and the cabin shook
uncomfortably.

Behind them, there was a sudden rattle of submachine-gun fire as the Italian officers opened up. If the
carabinieri
had been armed with rifles, it would have been a different story, but
the weapons they were carrying were intended for close-quarter fighting against soft targets – human beings, in fact – and the Piper was already nearly a hundred yards away from them
before they started firing. A couple of stray rounds hit the roof of the cabin, drilling harmlessly through its thin aluminium skin. Out of the corner of his eye, Richter saw another round hit the
port wing, near the tip.