The Babylon Idol

Chapter 18

As Ben was leaving the hospital, he was scanning a mental map of Europe and measuring distances. Olympia was a long way away, right down on Greece’s Peloponnese peninsula. To travel there by road represented a monster journey back north past Bologna and Ferrara, then over the arch of the Gulf of Venice to Trieste near the Italian border. Once out of Italy would begin the long slog southwards through the snowy forests and mountains of Slovenia and Croatia, across Bosnia and Herzegovina, through Montenegro and Albania and much of Greece itself. Such a long drive was out of the question, time-wise. As was the prospect of hacking all the way down to Ancona or Bari on Italy’s east coast to catch a ferry — if ferries even operated at this time of year.

No: it was clear he was going to have to leave the car here in Florence and jump on the first flight he could get. Assuming he could locate Anna Manzini in Olympia when he arrived. Assuming she was still there by the time he did. Assuming she was still alive when he found her.

A lot of assumptions, but it was all he had.

Ben’s mind was working fast as he walked away from the hospital portico arches and headed across the square towards where he’d parked the Alpina. Piazza di Santa Maria Nuova was cordoned off by stumpy chained-together bollards, to stop cars blocking up the parking spaces for ambulances. He stepped over the drooping iron chain and walked a few paces up the narrow street towards the car, lighting another Gauloise.

He was so consumed with his thoughts that he at first failed to register the pair of blazing headlights approaching the wrong way up the street, from the opposite direction. Snapping back to the present moment he turned and saw the black van.

Going much too fast. Heading right for him.

By the time Ben realised that the driver’s intention was to run him down, it was almost too late to get out of its path. He leaped back over the chain cordon, placing the two-foot-high concrete bollards between him and it.

The van didn’t slow down. It rammed into the bollards with a crunch of crumpling metal. Its front rode up off the ground as it smashed the concrete into rubble and kept coming, like a tank, bearing down on him.

Ben ducked through the rapidly narrowing gap between the corner wall of the square and the oncoming vehicle. He made it to the first parked car, a yellow Fiat, dived for it, slid sideways across its bonnet and landed on his feet. Immediately he was running up the street towards the Alpina, knowing he had little chance of reaching it before the van caught him.

With just one headlight still intact and its bumper and grille twisted and mangled, the black van ploughed through the remains of the bollards and entered the mouth of the street, the roar of its engine echoing between the tall buildings either side. Its left-side wing caught the front of the yellow Fiat and rammed it violently into the car behind it, a red Alfa that bounced sideways out of its parking space and almost flattened Ben as he raced past.

Ben was still ten long strides from his BMW. The van smacked the wreckage of the cars aside and kept coming. The passenger window was rolling down. A black-gloved hand was reaching out, clutching what took only a split-second glance for Ben to identify as a SIG Sauer MPX machine pistol.

The weapon opened fire, filling the narrow canyon of the street with noise and releasing a stream of bullets that stitched a ragged line of holes in the sides of the parked cars in Ben’s wake, punching through metal and glass.

He reached the Alpina’s driver’s door, but there was no time to get in. Ducking around the back of the car he fell into a crouch and whipped his Taurus from his belt. In advanced pistolcraft classes at Le Val, they taught the art of high-speed combat fire without using the sights. Things were happening too fast to take aim in any case as the van bore down on him, the machine gun snorting from its passenger window. He let off three fast snap-shots, saw his bullets splat into the van’s crumpled bonnet and windscreen. The MPX opened up with another strafing volley, blowing out two of the Alpina’s side windows, shredding the rear door and wing and forcing him to duck. The car shielded him from the gunfire. Solid German engineering. But if they’d been using a rifle-calibre assault weapon the bullets would have torn right through and found him on the other side. Some things in life, you had to be grateful for.

The van slewed to a skidding halt, blocking the street. Its doors burst open and two men jumped out. They were wearing ski masks and body armour. The one on the passenger side, dumping the spent mag from his machine pistol and slapping in a fresh load from a tactical pouch on his belt, was small and slightly built. The driver was a monster, muscular and tall, and the Franchi Spas combat shotgun he was wielding like a claymore was built to match.

Ben remembered the witness description of Gianni Garrone’s attacker. A huge guy, bulked up like he was a powerlifter, but fast on his feet. Same guy — and maybe also the same bastard who had shot Jeff and murdered Father Pascal, Luc Simon and Carlo Scanzi. He and his accomplice must have been hanging around the villa, waiting for the ambulance to go by so they could tail it to the hospital in Ben’s wake and lie in wait for their moment to finish the job and eliminate the witness.

And Ben had walked right into their path. They’d obviously watched him go inside the hospital, and decided to make their move when he reappeared. But Ben wasn’t about to let himself be picked off so easily.

Firing past the van’s open door the big man let off a roaring blast from his shotgun that ripped away part of the Alpina’s rear wing and tail-light, inches from where Ben was crouching. Then another, blowing out most of the rear window pillar and spraying Ben with broken glass.

Pinned down, he used the moment to consider his tactical options. In an ideal world, the torturer needed to be taken alive. The big man had been the one sent into Anna’s villa to gain the information; hence he was the most trusted and senior member of the hit team; hence he was more likely to know who they were working for. By contrast, the little guy on the passenger side was expendable.

So in the next instant, when Ben felt a pause in the gunfire and reared up from his cover to take another shot, it was the little guy he fired at. When the enemy is wearing armour, you abandon the traditional centre-of-mass approach and aim a little higher. Ben held the Taurus tightly in both hands and snapped off a double-tap, BANGBANG, that took him right in the head, a little off-centre but who would quibble. The little guy jerked backwards off his feet and went down on his back, the MPX clattering from his hand. Before he’d hit the ground Ben was swivelling the pistol a few degrees sideways to open fire on his muscular pal, hoping to wing him and take him out of the game without inflicting a lethal hit.

But the big guy was as fast on his feet as Luciano Morante had said. He ducked behind the open door of the van, clambering back inside with surprising agility for a man his size. Ben fired at the windscreen, turning it into a web of cracks. The van’s engine roared. It lurched forward and took off, leaving the dead man lying in the road. As it sped past, Ben rattled off a string of shots and shattered the passenger window. But the van kept going, making its escape the wrong way up the narrow street.

Ben could have run to check the dead man, but he had two reasons for ignoring him. One, as a source of information he was past his best; two, Ben could hear the growing wail of police sirens through the ringing in his ears, a sound he didn’t want to hear any more than the enemy did.

He scrambled out from behind his car. The Alpina looked as if the SAS had been using it as a shooting-range target. He could only hope it still went. He wrenched open the bullet-riddled door, dived behind the wheel, twisted the key in the ignition — and to his relief the engine burst throatily into life.

The van’s impact against the row of parked cars had squeezed them up nose-to-tail like railway carriages. Ben slammed the gearbox into forward drive and rammed the car in front, then crunched it into reverse and rammed the one behind him, trying to widen the gap so he could batter his way out. The van was getting further away every second.

The Alpina surged out of its parking space, wheels spinning. Both headlamps were smashed, but that was what street lighting was for. He punched the gas, roared into the square and pulled a 180-degree handbrake turn to bring himself facing the right direction. In terms of the traffic system that was also the wrong direction, but all that mattered was catching up with the van.

There was no time for anything like fastening the seat belt. Ben accelerated hard and the narrow ancient street with its crumbling stone walls and barred windows and shuttered doorways and graffiti became a tunnel. Cold air whistled in through the shattered windows.

There was the van, racing wildly ahead. Amid a screeching of brakes and blaring of horns, a bus appeared, blocking the van’s way. But a side street lay between them to the left, and the big guy threw the van down it, rocking hard on its suspension as he rounded the tight bend and almost flattened an old man and his dog who were crossing the road. The bus driver kept coming, then had to slam the brakes back on again with a shake of his fist as Ben forced him to a halt a second time.

The Alpina hammered down the side street. The van had lost precious seconds of lead. Ben was catching up, but the van driver had no intention of slowing down for anything, any more than he had respect for the one-way system.

Ben felt the fierce thrill of the chase as he sped after his enemy. He was the predator now, and he wasn’t going to let the big man get away from him.