As soon as he ended his brief radio conversation with Juan, Miguel put the radio to one side. Then he lay down flat on the ground, getting as comfortable as possible, picked up the Remington, wound the leather strap around his left arm, formed a tripod with his two elbows, and stared down the valley through the powerful Schmidt & Bender 5-25 x 36 telescopic sight. At the same time he worked the bolt of the Remington to chamber the first round from the magazine, then checked that the safety catch was off.
Away to his right, three articulated lorries were moving slowly up the hill in the right-hand carriageway of the three-lane road, directly towards him, the elevated exhaust pipes belching black smoke into the clear mountain air. Behind them, a few cars were travelling much more quickly, making easier work of the incline.
Miguel focused on each one in turn. A white van was in the right-hand lane, travelling quite quickly, but with a line of three cars approaching in the centre lane to overtake it. Behind the van was another light-coloured car, the driver presumably waiting his turn before pulling out to go past the van.
Miguel quickly checked the overtaking vehicles, but none of them fitted the description of the car he was looking for, so he moved the barrel of the rifle microscopically until he could see the car boxed in behind the van.
He gave a sharp intake of breath as he recognized the Renault badge and glimpsed the first part of the registration number on the plate below it. The make, model and colour were correct, and when he moved his head slightly so that he could see the note he’d made during Juan’s call, he confirmed the number as well.
He looked again through the telescopic sight, lifting his field of view slightly to look at the occupants as a final check: a dark-haired man behind the wheel, a blonde woman sitting beside him. He couldn’t make out their features, but he had no doubt that Juan had identified them correctly.
Now all he had to do was pick his moment.
His orders had been unambiguous. The two Britons were not to make it out of Spain. Ideally he was supposed to just stop the car so that they could be taken alive to allow Tobí to enjoy himself with them. If that wasn’t possible — and as far as he could see it wasn’t an option because of the speed of the vehicle — then their deaths were to appear to be an accident. In either case, their luggage was to be removed and handed over to Tobí as soon as possible.
Making it look like an accident meant he couldn’t simply drive a bullet through the man’s chest. But at the speed that the car was travelling, blowing out one of the front tyres would probably do the trick. The driver would lose control and the car would hit the barrier on the right-hand side and with any luck somersault over it and hit the rough ground on the east side of the autovia. If he was really lucky, it might even end up in the river at the bottom of the valley.
All Miguel needed was a single clear shot at the front of the Renault, and it looked as if his opportunity was coming. The last of the three overtaking cars was now almost parallel with the target, and as soon as that vehicle moved clear, Miguel would take his shot.
He concentrated on the view through the telescopic sight, tracking the target as he estimated the approximate range to that point on the road, and calculated how much lead distance he would need to allow. In his peripheral vision, he saw another car beginning to approach from the south, but disregarded it. It was too far away to interfere with his shot.
The overtaking car moved clear, and for the first time since it had come into view, he could see all of the Renault clearly. As he had expected, as soon as the driver had the opportunity, he indicated left and began accelerating to pull out and overtake the van.
Miguel focused, allowed just a fraction more of an angle off to allow for the bullet’s flight time, and then squeezed the trigger.
97
‘It’s a pretty road this,’ Angela said, as Bronson began easing to the left to overtake the white van that they’d been following. ‘It’s just a shame there’s so much traffic on it.’
Bronson nodded and glanced in his mirror. Almost immediately, he depressed the brake pedal to slow down the car and moved back into the right-hand lane.
‘What’s wrong?’ Angela asked.
‘Nothing,’ Bronson replied. ‘But there’s a Porsche 911 on Barcelona plates coming up fast from behind us, and I’d rather he was in front. The English community in Catalonia call the locals “Barceloonies”, I gather, because of the way most of them drive.’
Then everything happened very quickly.
There was a loud bang from the white van Bronson had been planning on overtaking, and the entire rear of the vehicle lurched over to the left as the back tyre blew. There was a squeal of brakes from behind them as the driver of the Porsche 911 saw the unexpected shape of the van suddenly starting to fill the lane he was driving along. Bronson reacted instantly, steering the Renault over to the right, towards the hard shoulder and out of any danger.
The van driver hit his brakes as well, and steered the vehicle back into the right-hand lane and then over onto the hard shoulder. The driver of the Porsche gave a short blast on his horn, and, as Bronson waved, he accelerated past the disabled van. Then Bronson pulled out again, the car quickly picking up speed.
On the hill on the opposite side of the autovia, Miguel cursed and worked the bolt of the Remington to chamber another round. The unexpected action of the Renault driver in pulling back in after he’d started to overtake had meant he’d hit the tyre on the wrong vehicle.
But that shouldn’t matter. There was another straight stretch of road in front of the Renault, and now that the Porsche had almost vanished from sight, there were no other vehicles around to spoil his next shot.
Again, he tracked the front of the car through his telescopic sight, waiting for the vehicle’s speed to build up enough to make the ‘accident’ he had planned look like a viable outcome.
‘Oh, shit,’ Bronson muttered, as he accelerated past the white van, which had now come to a stop on the hard shoulder. The left-hand door had opened and the driver was climbing out to inspect the damage, damage that was also obvious to Bronson. The bullet hole through the rear wheel arch was impossible to miss, and he knew that the jagged hole hadn’t been there just seconds before.
‘What?’
‘We’ve got problems. That wasn’t just a blow-out on that tyre. There’s a sniper somewhere on that hill over to our left, and I’m guessing we’re his target. Now he’s got a clear shot at us and there’s nowhere we can go.’
Angela stared at him.
‘Dear God,’ she murmured. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘Hold on and hope for the best,’ Bronson snapped.
Bronson hit the brakes hard, dropping the speed of the car dramatically, then floored the accelerator pedal again.
‘What are you doing?’ Angela asked, her voice high with tension.
‘If I keep going at a steady speed, that’ll make us an easy target. If I’m erratic, he won’t know how much lead to allow.’
He braked again, and at the moment he did so there was a crack from directly in front of the car, and a small spray of disturbed tarmac rose into the air as a bullet impacted with the road surface a short distance over to their right.
Immediately Bronson accelerated hard.
‘That was another bullet,’ he said.
He braked again, and swerved from side to side, swinging the car into the centre lane before diving back over towards the hard shoulder and accelerating.