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.