The Lost Testament

94

Bronson drove the Renault, wearing the stolen number plates, through the streets of Madrid, constantly checking his mirrors and all around for potential problems. So far so good. As he had hoped, their hotel seemed to have been safe.

By ten thirty they were clear of the city — most of the traffic heading in the opposite direction, back into Madrid — and steadily heading north-west in the general direction of Valladolid. That wasn’t the ideal route, bearing in mind their ultimate destination, but Bronson had guessed that the majority of the surveillance would be concentrated on the obvious routes out of the city, either due north towards Burgos and Santander where the overnight ferry to Britain docked, or north-east towards Saragossa and on to the French border. Well before he reached Valladolid, he would swing north-east and head towards France, staying off the autopistas.

The further they got from Madrid, the lighter the traffic became, and Bronson was able to maintain a reasonably high speed, although he was careful to keep within the limits. The last thing he wanted, with three unlicensed pistols about his person, was to be stopped by a member of the Guardia Civil for an offence as mundane as speeding.

He’d seen nothing to give him the slightest cause for concern up until that moment, so when he saw a sign for Segovia he took it without hesitation, because the sooner they started driving towards the French border the better.

‘Where are we heading now?’ Angela asked.

‘Pau,’ Bronson replied. ‘It’s just north of the border and the Pyrenees. Even sticking to the minor roads we should be able to get there by late this afternoon.’

They stopped for petrol shortly after they’d made the turn towards Segovia. Bronson wanted to make sure they had plenty of fuel for the crossing of the Pyrenees, and adequate petrol in reserve, just in case at any point they had to make a run for it.

He was very aware that crossing the Pyrenees and later the English Channel would probably be the two most dangerous parts of the journey. There were very few roads linking France and Spain across the mountains, and putting a team of men on each one wouldn’t involve an enormous expenditure of manpower. And the opposition would need an even smaller number of people to cover both the Channel Tunnel terminal and the handful of ferry ports on the French side.

They could lose themselves in the byways of France without any difficulty, Bronson knew that. But first they had to get across the border. The main problem was that the major roads, or autopistas, which would allow them to travel quickly, also had barriers at each exit. These were obvious places where a watch could be kept for them, and where he would have nowhere to go if the opposition suddenly appeared in front of him.

But he had another idea. A car is a lethal weapon: over a ton of metal moving at sixty miles per hour takes a lot of stopping. He’d checked the maps very carefully before they’d set out, and he’d been pleased to find that there was at least one fast road across the mountains that didn’t have any barriers, due to a strange quirk in Spanish road-building practices.

‘So where are you planning on crossing the mountains?’ Angela asked, as though she was reading his mind.

‘We’re taking the E-7, which is an autovia. They look pretty much the same as autopistas, and are usually dual carriageways, but traffic like bicycles and tractors and stuff is allowed to use them. Once we get on that road, I can wind the speed up quite a bit and cross the border into France as quickly as possible without having to stop.’

‘I see what you mean,’ Angela said, looking down again at the road atlas on her lap. ‘That road is marked slightly differently. Do you think we’ll have a clear run through?’

Bronson glanced across at her and shook his head.

‘I genuinely don’t know. It all depends on how many men they have available to watch the roads over the mountains. And there are a lot of other factors, a lot of unknowns, as well. They might have access to helicopters, or possibly some of the members of P2 might actually be serving as police officers or forest rangers, that kind of thing. But it’s our best chance.’