“Did that seem a little too easy to you?” Tom asked, pulling onto Boulevard Jean Jaurès.
“No, why?”
“Oh come on, Sam!” Tom laughed. “We just went and bought ourselves a 10-million-euro ancient artifact from the head of a mafia whose reputation lauded him for being the most dangerous, influential and least forgiving head of any current criminal organization in Europe.
“Yes, but people like that love people like us…” Sam looked at him. “Well, people like me. The very rich kind of buyers. I wasn’t there to haggle. I knew the product I wanted and I was willing to meet his terms to buy it. Why wouldn’t it go well?”
“Because he’s a criminal! And criminals don’t play by the normal rules.”
“Trust me. His reputation is more valuable to him than the 10 million euros.”
Sam pulled out his hand gun, a Glock with silencer. He checked the cartridge was fully loaded and removed the safety.
“What is it?” Tom asked.
Sam looked like a kid preparing to play cowboys and Indians. “Nothing. It’s just our friends, the police officers. The ones who don’t play by the rules have been following us. That’s all.”
Tom looked into the rearview mirror.
Around three cars behind them, he saw the police car on their tail.
“Damn it! Why didn’t you say something?”
“I thought I just did!”
“I meant when you first saw them.” Tom put his foot down and started increasing the gap.
Instantly he saw the blue lights of the police car begin to flash, followed by the annoying drone of its siren.
Tom sped up again.
“Do you have a plan for outsmarting the police?” Sam asked.
“Those aren’t the police, they’re Vincent’s men.”
“All the same. They’re driving a police car and sounding very much like police officers.”
“So, what’s your plan?”
“Let’s pull over and see what they want?”
“That’s your plan? Are you nuts?”
“We’re virtually driving a tank. What the hell are they going to do to us?”
Resigned to see what happened, Tom shrugged his shoulders and pulled over.
The police car pulled up in front of them and parked at an angle to their front, preventing them from returning to the main road again.
Both officers got out of the car and calmly walked up to the driver’s side door.
Tom lowered the window and smiled at the police officer. His name tag displayed the very non-French name, Jason. “I’m sorry. Was my brake light out?”
“Vincent says he’s gonna need the Arcane Stone back.”
Sam smiled unsympathetically. “Well gentlemen, you’d better tell Vincent to find another one, because we’re not interested in selling right now. Maybe in a few weeks, if he makes the right offer.”
The police officer at the open window smiled stupidly, and then pointed his Ruger machinegun inside the Hummer. “I suggest you reconsider my offer. I don’t think Vincent’s going to….”
Sam fired his Glock at point blank range — blowing the man’s head back with three rounds before he finished his sentence.
Tom put his foot down, and the massive Hummer rammed through the parked police car.
“Holy shit! Sam, a little heads up next time would be appreciated, before you start shooting people.”
“Only amateurs want to chat. Didn’t they teach you to kill while they talk?” Sam said as he looked behind them. “On that subject. His partner’s right on our tail again, and unless I’m much mistaken, he’s brought friends.”
Tom looked in his rearview mirror — there were at least four other crooked cop cars on the chase. “You got any plans?”
Bullets harmlessly raked the back end of the Hummer.
“Good to see this thing lives up to its expectation.”
“Yeah, but for how long? I’m sure they’ll find something a little more powerful to fire at us if we overstay our welcome.”
“Let’s not wait and find out.”
A split second later the loud report of a sniper rifle echoed through Nice, quickly followed by a second and then a third one.
Behind them, two police cars veered off the road — their drivers shot dead.
“Who the hell did that?” Tom said, weaving in and out of traffic, trying to increase the gap that had been created.
“That… I have no idea,” Sam replied. “No one aboard the Maria Helena could shoot like that. Perhaps Genevieve, but Matthew tells me she’s on leave. It might be Veyron? I wouldn’t put it past him to be an expert marksman.”
Another four shots fired in quick succession and the drivers of each of the remaining four cars died.
“Whoever it is, they’ve given me a chance to get clear. We should be at the airport in another few minutes.”
And then Tom hit his brakes hard.
An overturned garbage truck blocked the entire road. A road worker in high visibility work gear redirected them to the off ramp and back into the rabbit warren of the old city of Le Vieux Nice.
“That can’t just be bad luck!” Tom griped.
“No, I’d say Vincent’s bribes run pretty deep in this town.”
He turned into the first left, hoping to avoid the old town with its tiny streets and narrow lanes. In the rearview mirror Tom saw a large bulldozer turn to follow them. “We can outrun it!” At the end of that street, he turned right.
Taking him back to the center of the old town, near where they’d had lunch.
And into a dead end.
Chapter Twenty
Sam looked up ahead.
There was no way the Hummer was going to go any further. Behind them, the bulldozer had raised its digger menacingly.
“End of the ride kids,” Tom said.
They both quickly got out and tried to make their way further down the laneway. The bulldozer drove over the top of their Hummer, squashing it like an aluminum can.
Sam looked at his Glock. It felt highly inadequate against their attacker.
The driver of the bulldozer stopped momentarily to lower the digger so it scraped along the ground and the walls of the buildings. Sam looked around. There were no doors or windows that might provide an escape route. If they waited where they were, they’d be dead in a matter of seconds.
Sam took careful aim at the man high up in the driver’s seat — and fired.
The first shot went wide by several inches.
He carefully aimed and fired again. This time it was a dead on target, but the bulldozer’s windscreen had been designed to protect the driver from high velocity projectiles likely to be thrown up during road construction. The bullet sent a ripple like cracked ice through the windscreen, but never came close to hitting the driver.
Sam fired another three shots.
Finding himself out of ammo, he dropped his clip and loaded another, emptying it to the driver’s windscreen.
But the driver continued.
High above them in the church tower Sam recognized Vincent with a sniper riffle. For a moment he expected to be the next one shot dead.
The sound of another loud report echoed through the narrow lane. Sam looked toward Tom, expecting to find him killed. Instead, the driver slumped forward. The bulldozer then turned slightly to the right, and imbedded itself into the brick wall.
Vincent quickly slid down a rope and approached them. “I believe that’s all of them. You should be free to catch your flight.”
Tom looked at Sam. “I guess that’s how he manages to hold his position as the head of the crime syndicate.”
Sam smiled and in perfect French said, “Thank you. We owe you one.”
“No you don’t. You paid 10 million on the black market for an archeological device. We may be criminals, but we don’t like other people stealing from our clients. After all, if word gets around that we’re running a corrupt shop here, people won’t want to do business with us anymore.”