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.
Chapter Twenty-Two
‘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.
‘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.’