Zharkov didn’t react, but just stood perfectly still, which Abramov found more alarming than any blustering denial. ‘You’ll pay for this,’ the colonel hissed. ‘If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll make sure of that.’
‘Take him away,’ the major ordered.
‘Colin!’ Richter shouted, grabbing Raya by the arm and turning to run towards the nearby trees. ‘Try not to kill anyone!’
Dekker had already reacted and dived for cover. The gun case was now open beside him, and he was assembling the weapon with calm urgency.
The helicopter gunship swung around to face the Piper Arrow, then settled into a low hover over the open ground about a hundred yards away, as the pilot began lowering the retractable undercarriage ready for landing.
As he and Raya ducked into cover under the trees Richter could see, even through the glare of sunlight reflected off the twin windscreens, two figures in the cockpit, but he knew that the Eurocopter, in its AS 565 Panther configuration, could carry up to ten fully armed and equipped troops. If the French had found time to deploy that many personnel, he knew they were probably not going to get away this time.
‘Stay down,’ Richter instructed.
As he watched, the 20-millimetre Giat cannon swivelled towards the abandoned Piper Arrow. Then the muzzle shifted slightly to one side, and the gunner fired a short burst at the trees a couple of dozen yards away from where Richter and Raya had taken cover. The French airman was probably hoping such a demonstration of firepower would be enough to persuade the fugitives to give themselves up.
But that wasn’t quite what happened.
Richter heard the flat crack of Dekker’s sniper rifle, and suddenly smoke started pouring out of the Panther’s starboard engine. Then there was a much louder bang, and the helicopter’s engine seemed almost to explode, panels flying off it, and a sheet of flame erupted from the turbine inlet.
The helicopter lurched upwards, then swung sideways, the pilot fighting for control. Then the Panther crashed downwards to land so heavily that the right-hand main wheel collapsed under the impact. As the aircraft lurched violently sideways, the edge of the rotor disc clipped the ground, and that was enough to bring the aircraft’s total destruction. In an instant, the four main rotor blades splintered and cracked, sending debris flying all around. The fuselage toppled further onto its side, the noise of the remaining engine rising to a scream, and then it finally crashed to the ground.
Dekker appeared suddenly beside Richter, as he stared across the field at the smoking wreckage. Two men wearing flying overalls and helmets were climbing shakily out of the ruined fuselage, but they now clearly posed no threat to anyone.
‘That was either a pretty special bullet or a fucking good shot,’ Richter remarked.
Dekker grinned at him. ‘One round sent straight into the engine intake. No problem, at this range.’
‘Right, so now you’ve pissed off the French as well as the Italians. It’s time we got ourselves out of here. Let’s go and find a car.’
Dekker kept the rifle slung over his shoulder, as the three of them ran towards the group of houses they’d spotted before they landed. There was no point in trying to be discreet, since the sound of the helicopter’s Giat cannon would have alerted everybody in the neighbourhood. As soon as they reached the houses, Richter started looking out for a car. Preferably a fast one.
As they headed down the street, ignoring the curious glances of various residents who’d emerged from their houses to investigate the noise, a single man drove up in a newish four-door Renault saloon, which Richter thought might be a Laguna.
‘That’ll do,’ he murmured, and strode across to the driver’s door, just as it opened.
The driver looked at him enquiringly, then backed away quickly as Richter produced his Browning pistol.
‘I’ll drive, Colin,’ he suggested, ‘just in case we need your rifle again.’
Within seconds, all three of them were seated in the car, and Richter had swung it round to head back the same way the dispossessed driver had come.
‘He’ll tell the gendarmes, of course,’ Dekker said.
‘I know — which is why we need to get a move on. There aren’t that many roads around here, so mounting roadblocks won’t be difficult. I know we need to head south-west out of Aime, but where do we go after that? And how far is it to Chambéry?’
Dekker fished a map book of France out of the passenger door pocket, found the correct page and studied it for a few moments.
‘Keep going as far as Moûtiers, then turn right up to Albertville. There’s an autoroute there that we can follow all the way to Chambéry. It’s not far away, in a straight line, but probably about ninety or a hundred clicks on the road because of all the valleys.’
‘Bugger, that’s further than I thought,’ Richter said. ‘And I think we’d better stay off the autoroutes, because they’re the easiest to block.’
The road through Aime was good and wide and mostly straight, at least to begin with. When they reached the vicinity of Villette, it narrowed and became more twisty, but it was still good enough for Richter to keep their speed at well over one hundred kilometres an hour.
At Moûtiers, the N90 swung around to the south of the town and then headed north up the valley, but still they were able to travel quickly.
‘Keep your eyes open for trouble,’ Richter warned, as the Renault sped past La Bâthie. ‘The guy we borrowed this car from will have certainly sounded the alarm by now, so we’ll need to watch out for roadblocks.’
‘Yeah,’ Dekker agreed, still studying the map. ‘In fact I’m wondering if we should try a small detour, just in case.’
‘Where?’
‘At Albertville, maybe. That’s quite a big place, so there’s bound to be a gendarmerie somewhere about, and blocking the main road would be obvious. I suggest once you get to the interchange in the middle of the town, you get off the N90, and instead take a left on a minor road which should be signposted to Grignon. After you cross the river, the road continues pretty straight all the way to a place called Le Mathiez, where you’ll need to turn right.’
‘Sounds like a plan, so let’s do that.’
The interchange was easily spotted, because it was the only one on that stretch, so Richter swung the car down the slip road and headed south. After the relatively wide and open roads they’d been travelling on, the two-lane route to Grignon seemed instantly slower. But once they’d crossed the river, it at least became straight and almost empty of vehicles. And, just after they’d crossed the bridge, Dekker noticed how the traffic was backing up on the N90, which they could see over to their right, on the other side of the river. Though that might be due to an accident, he suspected a checkpoint on the road. Once they drove into the outskirts of Grignon, they lost sight of the alternative route.
‘That’s Le Mathiez over there,’ Dekker said soon, pointing left, ‘so watch out now for a junction to the right. It should be the D69, heading towards the autoroute, but you can go under it, carry on across the river again, and then pick up the D1090.’
As they approached the autoroute, they all glanced back, towards Albertville. The south-bound traffic was now very light, suggesting that there was still an obstruction of some kind.
‘That was a good call, Colin. I wouldn’t want to be stuck back there, whatever the reason. So we stay on this route, yes?’
It may have been just a minor road, but being a French minor road, it was straight and well surfaced and, twenty minutes later, Richter turned north-west at Montmélian. They were now approaching Chambéry.
‘We have to go right through the town and out the other side,’ Dekker advised him. ‘There’s a lake up to the north, with the town’s airport situated just to the south of it.’