Lucia stood up, suddenly anxious and wary and Harry got to his feet with her. Paolo and Grey Man took a step forward. The old boys in caps had gone suddenly quiet, but kept their heads down, staring at their hand of cards.
“Lucia. You should go now and wait for Luigi. He say you must return home immediately.”
Lucia glowered at him then looked at Harry, but he knew there was danger and wanted her to leave even if it meant going back to her oaf of a husband. He gave her an almost imperceptible nod. Paolo removed his sunglasses.
“Signore Barone would like to have a talk with you. Please. We take you.” He gestured towards the car, courteous, non-threatening. Harry hesitated, but knew they were serious when Grey Man opened his jacket, revealing a glimpse of shoulder holster. Grey Man opened the back door of the Mercedes and Harry climbed in with Grey Man alongside. Paolo got in the front and the driver gunned the engine, spinning the tyres on the cobblestones.
They drove at speed back down to the riverside then turned right, away from Casavento, and Harry realised it was unlikely he was being taken for a pep talk with Luigi Barone. It was far more serious than that. Neither Paolo nor the other two goons said a word, which was also significant and fairly indicative. The executioner keeps a mental distance from the condemned; engagement of any sort weakens resolve and makes the job harder. They crossed the river over a single-track bridge that led uphill into a forest. The bumpy dirt road narrowed and after a few minutes, they pulled up. The car was blocking the road, but it hardly mattered as there was no one around.
He tried to recall his field training but it was a long time ago and he’d never had to use it. In any event, hand to hand was all very well provided you had a weapon of some sort – a stick even – but he had nothing other than his fists. He’d made a quick assessment of the opposition. None of them were athletes, clearly. Paolo was forty-something, skinny, had yellow, drawn skin and, between coughs, had smoked all the way. The driver was older and short, carried a few stone more than necessary and had a florid complexion. Grey Man with him in the back was in his fifties, grey hair and stubble to match his suit and looked the most dangerous.
“We get out here,” said Paolo as he and Grey Man opened the doors and beckoned him out. He thought a chat with Luigi Barone was probably not on the agenda, but couldn’t decide whether he was in for a beating or something more terminal. Given the remote surroundings and the general appearance of his captors he thought it unlikely they’d risk a bout of fisticuffs, even if it was three to one. But any doubt was dispelled when Grey Man opened the boot and extracted a large shovel. Paolo reached inside his jacket and pulled out a Beretta. He waved it towards the trees.
“Walk!”
Fat Man stayed with the car, which was good because this reduced the odds, but only from bad to poor. He knew Grey Man was armed too but he was carrying the shovel over one shoulder and that would impede sudden movement. Paolo’s latest cigarette dangled from a lower lip when it wasn’t in his hand flicking ash, and Harry noted each transition put him at his most vulnerable. They arrived at a small clearing between pine trees, a hundred yards from the car.
“Stop!” Grey Man threw the shovel down at Harry’s feet and pulled out his gun, pointing it at his head.
“Now you dig,” said Paolo, waving his gun at the ground.
Harry was pleased to have a weapon, even if it was only a shovel. On the bright side, nothing would happen until he had finished digging a big enough hole. The goons were obviously too lazy to do it themselves and had watched too many gangster movies. The longer it took the harder it would be for them to maintain their concentration, but unless they came within striking distance, he wouldn’t be able to wield the shovel effectively. The ground was soft, decades or more of fallen pine needles producing a rich mulch that was perfect for breaking down organic matter. It wouldn’t have to be deep, just enough to cover a body with a thin layer, then nature would do the rest, unless, of course, the bears got there first.
He was running out of time and he felt a sadness wash over him. He’d been in dangerous and difficult situations before, but had never been confronted with an inevitability like this. Even in war, he’d never had time to contemplate his demise, apart from his last moments in the Girardi farmhouse and, in their own way, those moments had become precious. He thought of Lucia, alone with her vile and repulsive husband, and wanted more than anything to see her again. He’d had nothing left in his life until he’d met her and now, unexpectedly, he did. He made a decision.
He stopped digging and leaned on the shovel. The mulch had ruined his brown loafers and smeared his pale trousers with dirt and he was angry. He’d had enough. He climbed out of the hole and Paolo and Grey Man both took a step back.
“You finish!” said Paolo, waving the gun again.
“Finish it yourself,” he said wearily.
Paolo looked at Grey Man then back at Harry. He blinked, which was never a good sign for a pro, but then Harry had already come to the conclusion these guys were amateurs. They should have shot him first and then dug a hole. There was nothing to be gained by postponing the act and everything to lose.
“Drop the gun!” The amateurs froze and looked at each other. “I’ll kill you both!” They turned their heads slowly. Lucia was only ten feet away, swinging a gun nervously from one to the other and back again. Paolo looked at Grey Man and they both sniggered, their gun hands still outstretched, weapons still pointed at Harry. She gripped the gun with both hands and tried again with more intensity. “Drop your gun, Paolo Barone or I promise I will shoot you. You too, Franco.” But her hands were shaking and she was trembling. Paolo spread his arms.
“Lucia. My brother will be a very unhappy man,” he said with a mischievous glint and Franco chuckled with him. “We only come to frighten the inglese and now you spoil the joke!”
“I mean it, Paolo. This man is worth more than the two of you.”
Both men shrugged. She fired two shots over Paolo’s head and he ducked, taken completely by surprise, humour evaporating instantly.
“Hey! Okay. Okay.” Both men lowered their guns. Franco turned to look at Harry, who’d raised the shovel to shoulder height in case it were needed. But before Harry could move, another shot sounded. Franco’s body suddenly jerked as a red flower blossomed in his chest and they watched, as if in slow motion, he toppled forward into the hole. They stared down at him in confusion when another shot made Harry duck, then look back at Paolo, who’d gone cross-eyed and now sported a red hole in the centre of his forehead. Paolo’s knees buckled and he crumpled to the ground, rolling into the hole on top of Franco.
“Sniper!” yelled Harry. He dropped the shovel and dived forward, taking Lucia down in a rugby tackle, grabbing an arm and dragging her on her back behind a pine tree. “Give me the gun!” She handed it over, gasping, the wind taken out of her by the fall. Another shot and splinters of bark flew from the trunk near his head and he felt the tree shudder against his back. He looked up to the track and saw the Mercedes roaring away uphill; Fat Man had seen what was going on and was making his escape.
“Who’s shooting at us?”
“How should I know? Not friends of your husband, that’s for sure. What are you doing here?”
“I followed you. My scooter is on the track, out of sight,” she said, breathless and terrified, her chest heaving.
“Look, we have to make a run for it. There’s plenty of cover. I’ll stay behind you.” He pointed to a thick pine fifteen feet away diagonally to their left. “When I say go, go for that tree and don’t look back, whatever happens. Okay?” She nodded, terror in her eyes. He peered around the tree and there was a shot and bark splintered again with a dull slap. Whoever it was hadn’t moved position; the sight was centred on the hole he’d been digging and the aim had swung left to the adjacent tree. It would be a good sniper that could hit a moving target, especially if the target was shooting back. He was transported back to Sicily and Southern Italy. He was commanding his platoon again, pinned down by a sniper, again, except that this time he was poorly equipped. Conventional strategy, and the safest thing to do, was to split up and go in different directions because then the shooter would have to choose. But he wouldn’t risk it; he had to cover her.
“Stay as low as you can, hands and knees. Ready?” She nodded again and he saw the beginnings of panic. He pulled her towards him and kissed her forehead. He wasn’t sure why; it just seemed the natural thing to do. “Go!” She went left and he let off three shots in the general direction of the sniper, then followed her, scrabbling on all fours, keeping their heads below some ferns, and reached the next tree. He sat with his back to the trunk, pulling her close with a hand wrapped around her chest and he felt her heart beating furiously. “That one,” he whispered in her ear, pointing left again where there was a cluster of ferns and shrubs that would inhibit line of sight. “Go!” She dived forward and he followed immediately behind, shielding her from the estimated trajectory of any bullet, but there were no more shots. Maybe he’s on the move too? That would be logical. He’d have to reposition in order to get another shot and that would take precious seconds. But they couldn’t afford to give him the luxury of time. He pointed again. “Go!”
This one was further away, a giant eucalyptus with a metre-wide trunk, and they stopped again, huddled together. He risked a peek around the trunk, but there was no reaction. They were fifty yards from the track and soon they’d be running across the line of sight behind dozens of trees, making them impossible targets. “Go!” Still no shot or slap against bark, so he made a decision. “Keep going!”
They reached the dirt track and sprinted downhill the way the car had brought him and there, around the first bend, sat the red Vespa. She jumped on top and kicked the starter. He swung a leg behind her, she twisted the throttle and the little red scooter leapt off its stand and careered down the track. She drove just like an Italian and the scenery blurred but he caught a flash of light, a glint of chrome in the bushes to his right. Another bike? He wrapped an arm around her waist and pressed against her back, fearing he’d be thrown off but she twisted the handlebars left and right and weaved the Vespa expertly between potholes and ridges until they hit the narrow bridge across the river and were back on tarmac. The engine buzzed like a demented bee as she cranked up the speed and he had to shout to be heard.
“Back to the car!”
***
She guided the Vespa through the piazza and into the car park and he was relieved to see the Spyder still there and apparently intact. He dismounted and opened the boot: his jacket and suitcase were still there too. Lucia sat astride the scooter, engine still running, holding the handlebars, but she looked distraught. In the ten-minute journey he’d been working out a plan.
“What do we do now, Harrimale?”
“We need to get away from here. Away from Casavento.”
“Where?” She sounded angry but he knew it was just fear. He stepped forward and put a hand on her arm. She looked straight ahead, unable to make eye contact.
“Just do as I say, Lucia. I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She turned to look at him and her eyes were moist. “You said that yesterday.”
He’d said he wouldn’t harm her and it had been true, never in a million years, yet indirectly, his persistence had put her in harm’s way. She was his responsibility now, unconditionally.
“You saved me just now,” he said, trying to make light of dark situation. “It’s my turn and I’ll say it again. I won’t let any harm come to you.” She looked unconvinced. “Get in the car. Now.”
***
She argued but he insisted. There was no alternative in the short term if he was going to keep her safe. Sooner or later, Fat Man driving the Mercedes – Bruno, she called him – would get word back to Luigi about what had happened. As far as Bruno could tell, Lucia had shot Paolo and Franco and run off with the inglese.
“What were you doing with a gun?” he asked her as they hit the riverside road and sped back towards town.
“There’s a compartment in the scooter. I have it for protection when I am alone. Parts of Italy are still like the Wild West.”
“So I can tell. What made you come after me?” He cast a glance at her. Her arms were folded across her chest, eyes staring ahead.
“I know what Luigi is like. I tried to warn you. Lives mean nothing to him. People who invade his territory are warned once, then they pay the price.”
“But you said he was friends with the mayor and the police chief. And the priest!”
She gave him a look of disdain. “Exactly. How else can he do what he does? They have control over everything and everyone.” He’d been naïve. He’d worked in the shadows for so long he’d forgotten that out here in the real world, bad people still did bad things on a daily basis. The Wild West indeed.
They reached the Ponte Galliano and he turned right to cross the river. He saw her looking at the mediaeval arch into the town as if he was going the wrong way, but she stayed silent and just stared through the windscreen. Her world had unravelled at lightning speed and at this precise moment she had nothing other than the clothes she was wearing. He couldn’t know what was going through her mind, but he cared deeply.
The Spyder reached the opposite side of the river and began its winding ascent up the mountain on the road to Rome. Harry drove at speed and had to concentrate, especially on hairpin bends and places where there were no protective barriers, while his mind wrestled with random thoughts. He didn’t care one way or another what befell the foot soldiers of a second-rate mafioso, but he was still puzzled about the sniper. Yes, she’d said, Luigi had enemies; a rival had driven him out of Montellano all those years ago and he might at some stage have come up against competition in Casavento.
But it made no sense that a rival’s hitman might be hiding in the woods just in case Barone’s flunkeys came wandering by. Maybe it was some weirdo with a sniper rifle shooting at anyone and everyone, just as a form of entertainment? And why did Franco and Paolo get shot first when he was the closest and easiest target? Why did the shooter then fire off a couple of rounds at them but then stop? Just to scare them? It troubled him because there were no obvious answers.
Speculation was one thing, but he had to deal with realities. Two of Barone’s men, one of them his brother, were dead and his wife had gone missing with the inglese. There was no way she could go back home and convince him it had all been an innocent misunderstanding, even though, until somebody began shooting, that was exactly the way it had been. Harry and Lucia shared a tragic history of which Barone knew little or nothing and none of it was a threat to him. Maybe, as Lucia had tried to explain, Barone was simply the type to see a threat in everything; absolute power and control was his religion and would not be compromised. But there was still a shooter out there who might be in pursuit and soon Barone’s army of goons would be joining the chase. He had to get her away from Casavento.
He had no idea of the scope and scale of Barone’s network, whether it was confined to the area around Casavento or extended further beyond, and nor did she.
“Luigi makes many trips out of town, sometimes to Rome, but I don’t know where he goes or why. Whores, I suppose.”
“Does he ever go back to Montellano?”
“I doubt it. The town belongs to someone else now.”
Whether Luigi had already been alerted to the crisis or was still lying drunk and sated in a brothel, he would at some point give chase. He’d get straight on the phone and mobilise his troops: find her and kill him. Harry couldn’t know how quickly things might happen, but within minutes, he found out.
A black Mercedes-Benz careered around a hairpin bend ahead of them, its rear end askew, sliding across the road and almost colliding with the Spyder. Harry wrenched the wheel right to avoid it and narrowly missed the barrier but caught a glimpse of the corpulent and sweaty Bruno, twirling the wheel in panic, desperate to get back and report the debacle to his master. Bruno’s face confirmed instant recognition of the Spyder and its occupants, his expression feverish, eyes wide in triumph. Harry kept his eyes on the rear-view mirror, expecting to see brake lights and a car in pursuit, but there was nothing; Bruno was outnumbered and, for all he knew, probably outgunned too. The danger had passed for now.
“Where the hell did he come from?” said Harry in exasperation, but Lucia’s anxiety had returned.
“The forest track leads to a main road and circles round to join this one.”
Harry considered the options. They were only ten minutes out of Casavento on the road to Rome and that was almost three hours away. It would not take long for Bruno to alert Barone and get reinforcements. There was no guarantee he could outrun them, but now Barone would know their general direction was south-west and that was a matter of grave concern. He looked at Lucia. She was rubbing her upper arms, possibly from fear but just as likely cold. The temperature had dropped steadily as they’d ascended and the sun had dipped behind the mountain.
They reached a plateau and a fork in the road. He pulled the car over to the side.
“What’s happening?” she said, suddenly alert.
He jumped out and grabbed the canvas roof that was folded behind the seats, pulling it up and over her head, then retrieved his jacket from the boot and climbed back into the driver’s seat. He leaned over to her side, snapped down the roof retaining clips and wound up the window, then spread his jacket over her chest and arms.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling weakly.
He looked at the road sign and made a decision. Rome was to the right. He slicked the car into gear and steered left, towards Montellano.