Two bullets echoed out, slamming harmlessly into the wall. Young flung himself low through the doorway, already firing before he hit the carpet. One of the bullets took Rocca high in the shoulder. The Bernadelli spun from his hand. Young glanced at the ashen-faced man sitting in the corner of the room with a blanket around his legs.
Pisani. He recognized him from one of the photographs in the envelope he had taken from Ramona. He kicked the Bernadelli underneath the bed then reached behind him and locked the door without taking his eyes off either man. Pisani remained motionless in his chair, his eyes riveted on Young. Rocca stood in the middle of the room, his left hand clutching his right shoulder. His fingers were covered in blood. Young shot him through the head. Rocca fell back against the wall and slid lifelessly to the floor, his hand leaving a smear of blood on the white embossed wallpaper. Young trained the submachine-gun on Pisani.
‘I am glad to see that you are a professional,’ Pisani said softly, then coughed violently, his face clenched against the agonizing pain. He wiped the spittle from his lips with the back of his hand. ‘The doctors have given me two months to live, three at the most.’
‘How did you know I spoke English?’
‘Word gets around when a foreigner asks delicate questions about the Red Brigades. We are a very close family, especially here in Rome. Unfortunately Johnny Ramona defied my instructions and passed certain information on to you. He always was greedy. At least you saved us the trouble of disciplining him.’
The door handle was tried from the outside. A voice called out in Italian. Still smiling at Young, Pisani slipped his hand deftly underneath the blanket. Young reacted faster, and shot him through the head. Pisani slumped back in the chair, a trickle of blood running down the bridge of his nose and on to his pallid cheek. The blanket slipped from his legs. Young was momentarily puzzled.
There had been no weapon secreted beneath it. Then it suddenly made sense. Pisani had wanted to die, it was an escape from the agony of his cancer. He had tricked Young, knowing that as a professional he would kill him. He hadn’t wanted the guards to save him.
Young ran to the window and pushed it open. The roof sloped at a forty-five-degree angle with a twelve-foot drop to the garden. A bullet splintered the door behind him. Then another. He scrambled out on to the sill and a bullet cracked inches from his head. He overbalanced, slid down the roof, catching his elbow painfully on the gutter, and landed heavily on the grass. He remained on his back, winded by the fall. The guard who had shot at him appeared over him, the AK-47 gripped tightly in his hands. He was barely out of his teens, and he was nervous. Young glanced towards his own submachine-gun. It was out of reach. He still had an ace to play: the switchblade strapped to his left wrist.
He struggled to sit up, then clutched his wrist, feigning a look of intense pain, and had successfully palmed the switchblade by the time the youth prodded him with the Kalashnikov, telling him to stand up. A face appeared at the bedroom window. The youth instinctively looked up.
Young lunged at him, springing the blade in the second before he drove it into the unprotected body. He grabbed the Kalashnikov from the youth’s hands and sprayed the windows with gunfire, forcing the guard to dive for cover. He discarded the Kalashnikov, picked up his own submachine-gun and sprinted to the temporary sanctuary of the trees, where he undipped a two-way radio from his belt and told Whitlock that he was on his way. He looked back towards the house. Nothing moved. He made his way through the trees until he saw the main gates ahead of him.
Although he could see the small hut beside it, he couldn’t tell if there was anyone inside. He inched his way forward.
Then he saw the guard standing outside the gate. The remote control to activate the gates was clipped to his belt. Young cursed angrily under his breath. He was trapped. He only had one option open to him. He reluctantly undipped his two-way radio and called Whitlock again.
Whitlock put the two-way radio back on to the dashboard, got out of the car and walked slowly down the street, his hands dug into his pockets.
The guard saw him but made no attempt to conceal his Kalashnikov. Whitlock smiled at him in greeting, then took Young’s cigarettes from his pocket and pushed one between his lips. He made a show of patting pockets for matches, then crossed the road to where the guard was standing.
‘Ha da accendere,‘ he asked, using his limited Italian.
The guard shook his head and waved him away from the gates. Whitlock feigned to his left then pivoted round and caught the guard on the chin with a perfectly timed haymaker. The guard was unconscious before he hit the ground. Whitlock winced as he flexed his hand painfully. He removed the remote control from the guard’s belt and opened the gates.
Young slipped out into the street and Whitlock immediately closed the gates behind him. Young took the remote control from Whitlock, wiped it clean of fingerprints, then tossed it down the nearest drain. They ran back to the car. Whitlock started the engine and pulled out into the road. Young removed his gloves, balaclava and sweatshirt then reached behind him for a holdall from which he took a white T-shirt and pulled it on, tucking it into his trousers. He stuffed the gloves, balaclava, sweatshirt and the submachine-gun into the holdall then ruffled his blond hair and picked up his cigarettes from the dashboard.
‘Seems like you needed me after all,’ Whitlock said with evident satisfaction.
Young inhaled deeply on the cigarette but remained silent.
‘Can I at least know now who you hit?’ Whitlock bit back his anger when Young continued to say nothing. ‘It’s going to be in all the papers tomorrow.’
‘So ask the receptionist to reserve you a couple.’ Young wiped his forearm across his sweating face. ‘We have to dump the car. We can drop it off at the rental agency and get another one on the way back to the hotel.’
‘That’s too obvious. If the police do get a description of the car they’re sure to check with the rental agencies. Taking it back to the rental agency so soon after the crime would certainly arouse suspicion. I say we dump it in a car-park and hire a new one from a different agency in the morning.’
Young nodded in agreement and flicked his half-smoked cigarette out of the window. He closed his eyes and remained silent for the rest of the journey back to the boarding house.
Sabrina and Calvieri returned to the hotel and went straight to her room. Kolchinsky answered the door.
‘How’s Mike?’ she asked before Kolchinsky could say anything.
‘Ask him yourself,’ Kolchinsky said, gesturing behind him.
She winced at the discoloured bruise on the side of Graham’s face as she crossed to the bed and sat down beside him.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘I’m okay,’ he replied dismissively. ‘How did you get on?’
‘We didn’t,’ she replied, despondent, and told them what had happened.
‘Is there any chance of this Rocca discovering the truth ?’ Kolchinsky asked Calvieri.
‘No,’ Calvieri replied.
‘Only Signore Pisani and I know about the vial. And Signore Pisani won’t tell him anything.’