The Martyr’s Curse

Chapter Forty-One

Ben nudged the gas a little more forcefully and felt the car draw on its apparently limitless power reserves as the twisting road carried them steeply upwards into mountainous terrain. Using the width of both lanes, he took a racing line through a set of S-bends; then the way ahead opened up into a long straight, with a drop-away view to their right and an upward-sloping rock wall to their left. The road was similar to the one he’d negotiated in the old Belphégor, except now he was tackling it several times faster.

Still the dark shadow of the police helicopter stayed right overhead, pursuing them like a bird of prey descending on a running hare. Ben floored the throttle hard in fourth at over a hundred and seventy kilometres an hour and the Subaru howled and leaped forwards, reeling the horizon in, the road ahead a flickering ribbon disappearing rapidly under their wheels. The shadow of the chopper dropped back momentarily and then crept back up.

‘Might be worth fastening your seatbelt,’ Ben said to Silvie over the engine roar. She quickly clipped it into place. Unfazed by the wild speed they were doing, she reached behind her into Ben’s bag for one of the stolen police radios and checked it, scanning through the channels in the hope of tuning into their communications. She shook her head. ‘Radio silence. They know we’re listening in.’

Ben said nothing. The speedometer climbed past one-ninety. Two hundred. Two-two-five. About as fast as he had ever driven before, but the chopper was faster. It effortlessly overtook them, just metres above the Subaru’s roof, then dropped down to half the altitude so that its skids almost skimmed the road surface and its sleek fuselage blocked out Ben’s view through the windscreen. It was a highly dangerous manoeuvre. The slightest touch of the skids on the rushing tarmac and the aircraft would go nose-down into a tumble that would destroy it and the Subaru in a split second. But Ben could see what the pilot’s strategy was even before it began to happen. The pilot eased off the throttle and the chopper’s swaying tail rotor seemed to come rushing backwards towards them, forcing Ben to scrub off some of his own speed. Then the pilot would keep throttling off, a progressive stranglehold that wouldn’t slacken until they were at a standstill. Whereupon, armed men would come leaping down from the aircraft to arrest them.

No dice.

Ben kept his foot relentlessly down and twisted the wheel hard to the right, throwing the Subaru into a howling swerve that narrowly missed spearing the windscreen on the back of the chopper’s right skid. Silvie let out a gasp as they shot through the gap between the low-flying aircraft and the vertiginous drop to their right. One tiny mistake, one twitch, they’d veer straight off the edge taking the flimsy crash barrier with them, and go plunging hundreds of feet to their deaths. The vicious hurricane from the rotors buffeted them as they screamed past. The steering wheel vibrated violently in Ben’s clenched fists. He tightened his jaw and kept his eyes front and sped onwards. Felt the car clear the downdraught. Twisted the wheel to the left and the Subaru swerved away from the edge, straddling the middle of the road at blistering speed with its rear wing just two or three metres from the nose of the pursuing helicopter.

Silvie was clutching the sides of her seat now, eyes screwed shut. The deafening thud of the rotors filled their ears once more as the chopper pilot drew level with them, trying a new tactic: to force them into the rocky left side of the road. The left wing mirror tore away with a loud bang and Ben sawed the wheel to control a wobble. Then, as if sensing the risk, the chopper rose a few metres before swooping back in overhead and attempting to slow them down by blocking the way once more. Twisting left and right in his seat to see past the swaying aircraft, Ben saw a long left curve come flashing towards them. He refused to slow down. Kept the needle steady at one-ninety; then another straight opened up ahead and suddenly there was a high rocky bank hurtling directly towards them as the road disappeared into a tunnel through the mountainside. Ben had time to smile, imagining the look on the pilot’s face.

The chopper pulled up into a steep emergency climb, disappearing from view as the car rocketed ahead and roared into the mouth of the tunnel. Ben glanced back and saw no fiery carnage and conflagration in the mirror — the pilot must have managed to clear the slope. The slap of rotors from the hovering aircraft was faintly audible as the car raced through the long, winding tunnel.

Ben knew it was only a temporary reprieve. The chopper could simply wait for them on the other side. If Ben had been running their show, he’d have had the pilot hovering just beyond the end of the tunnel, blocking the whole width of the road and cutting off all chance of escape. Plus, he’d have whatever armed agents were on board already on the ground, ready to intercept and arrest the fugitives at gunpoint. A fail-safe strategy. Not one that he wanted to deal with.

He braked, hard. The speedometer reading dropped like a stone and the car came to a slithering halt.

‘What are we doing?’ Silvie asked.

‘Getting out,’ Ben said. He shut off the Subaru’s engine. Plucked the key from the ignition and threw open his door.

There was a vehicle coming in the opposite direction, headlights blinking in the tunnel. Moving fast. A low-slung little wedge of a sports car. Ben stepped out of the Subaru, wrenched open the back door and grabbed the FAMAS rifle. Planted himself in the middle of the road, aiming it at the oncoming car. The approaching headlights wobbled. The engine note dropped in pitch and was replaced by the shriek of brakes. The sports car halted a few metres away. A white Peugeot RCZ two-seater convertible with the top down, showroom-shiny. Probably being taken on its maiden voyage by its proud owner, a snappy-looking young guy in a golf cap and designer sunglasses, who was staring in shock at this unexpected turn of events.

‘Out of the car,’ Ben said, aiming at his chest.

‘Wh-what do you mean, out of the car?’ the young guy stammered.

‘I’m commandeering it,’ Ben said, moving around the side. Silvie was already lifting their things out of the Subaru.

‘You can’t have it,’ the guy said.

Ben whipped the golf cap off his head and put it on.

‘Hey!’

‘On the double now, there’s a good chap,’ Ben said. He opened the sports car’s door and grabbed the guy’s arm, hauling him out.

‘This is robbery!’

‘Call it a swap,’ Ben said, tossing him the Subaru keys. ‘Now shut your mouth before you start annoying me. And I’ll have those sunglasses, too.’ He snatched them off the guy’s face and put them on. Passed the FAMAS to Silvie, who brandished it menacingly as Ben tossed the bags into the narrow space behind the RCZ’s seats. There was a jacket neatly folded on the passenger seat. Probably silk, most likely Italian, undoubtedly expensive. Ben could think of a use for that, too. He got behind the wheel and gunned the engine. Silvie hurried round to the passenger side, flung the rifle in with the bags and piled in next to him and they took off, leaving the guy standing there clutching the keys to the stolen police car.

‘That was a little bit mean,’ Silvie said as they streaked back in the direction they’d come, her hair streaming in the breeze blowing through the open cockpit.

‘I’m a very mean kind of person,’ Ben said.

She smiled. ‘You don’t fool me.’