Private Rome

Chapter 67

The shooter was a blur of black jeans and dark gray T-shirt as he ran down the stairs. I followed him, bounding and bouncing off the walls, closing the gap, but saw him fumbling with his waistband and pressed back away from the guardrail when I realized he had a pistol. He waved it in my direction and fired two shots that sounded like thundercracks in the enclosed stairwell.

Being at the wrong end of a gun slowed me down. I hugged the wall as I followed him. He reached the ground floor, ran through the stairwell door and I followed, only to be confronted by the barrel of his gun.

He’d ambushed me.

I knew the advantage would play to him if I lost momentum, so I ducked as he fired, ignored the loud gunshot and the ringing in my ears, grabbed his outstretched arm and twisted it up and inwards, applying enough pressure to break it. He reacted before the bone cracked, cried out, dropped the gun, kneed me in the gut and wriggled free. Winded, I picked up the pistol and sucked in breath as I ran after him.

He sprinted onto the street and waved down a car, which screeched to a halt as he stepped in front of it. He pulled the unwitting driver, a terrified woman in her fifties, from her seat and jumped into the Alfa Romeo Giulia.

I reached the street as he accelerated away and brandished the gun at the driver of a BMW 3-Series that had been forced to stop behind the Alfa. The driver, a man in his thirties, came out scowling, but stepped back as I jumped in.

I gunned the engine and the car roared like an animal as I set off after the shooter.

He was reckless, racing along Via Eutropio, past parked cars on either side, before performing a screeching handbrake turn onto Via Appiano, a wider street that was flanked by smaller, more tightly packed apartment blocks. The gunman accelerated, weaving around slower- moving cars, mounting the sidewalk, blasting his horn to urge people to jump clear. He shot beneath a bridge and raced downhill, weaving around a delivery truck. I followed more cautiously, eager not to hurt anyone but keen to keep within striking distance.

The tires screeched as I swerved around a Mercedes, the shocked face of the driver receding apace in my rear-view mirror as the BMW surged forward, chasing the shooter onto Piazza Giovenale, a small square with a playground at its heart. He went round the square the wrong way, dodging oncoming vehicles, and turned left on Via Ugo de Carolis.

I heard a bone-crunching crash and slowed as I approached the intersection. I saw the crumpled wreck of the Alfa concertinaed against the back of a garbage truck.

The shooter, dazed and disoriented, bleeding from a gash on his head, was tamping down the driver’s airbag and struggling to get free of the vehicle.

I stopped the BMW, unclipped my seat belt and jumped out. The sight of me approaching spurred him on and he got to his feet, staggered a few steps and started running along the street, ignoring the shouts of the garbage workers who were understandably upset by the crash.

I followed, pushing through the gang of uniformed men and onlookers, and raced after the shooter. I tucked the pistol in my waistband. There was no way I’d even threaten to use the weapon as an attempt at intimidation when there were so many innocent people around.

The shooter was limping and I was closing the gap between us. He kept glancing back and looked increasingly dismayed and agitated to see me gaining on him.

We were approaching the intersection with Via Filippo Nicolai, and a crowd of pedestrians was gathered on this side of the street, poised to go south.

The shooter pushed his way through the crowd until he was at the very edge of the crosswalk. He glanced back at me and, very deliberately, stepped off the sidewalk into the path of a speeding dump truck.