Viper

105

Stazione dei carabinieri, Castello di Cisterna Six-year-old Enzo Valsi ran down the grey carabinieri corridor and clung like a rugby player to his mother's legs. Clara Sofri, the social worker who'd been caring for him, looked disinterested at the emotional mother-and-child reunion. She'd seen it all before. Dozens of times. Young woman comes off the rails, commits a serious crime and her family life is suddenly shattered. The kid will be better off in care.

Gina cried as she held her son. Hugged and squeezed him tighter than she'd ever done.

'Ti voglio bene, tesoro – Mamma really loves you.' She kissed his face and his head. His skin soft against hers. It smelled warm. Tender. She'd miss it. Miss it so much, it would almost kill her.

Gina had been as careful as she could with her statement about Francesca and Kristen, but she knew there was enough there for them to hold her and charge her. Then they'd come back and pick her story to pieces. After that they'd make her talk about the other bitches that Bruno had fucked and taunted her with.

One question haunted her. Spooked her as much as it did most of the cops on the case. Why hadn't she killed Valsi? He was at the root of the problem. He was the guy causing all the humiliation and pain. So, why hadn't she killed him, or had him killed?

The answer was a complex one.

She'd loved him. She hated him, but she loved him too. Really, really loved him. And all she'd ever wanted was to be his wife and raise his children.

A cell-block guard pulled at her shoulder. 'Signora, we must go now.'

Her world fell apart. She had to be dragged away. Enzo tried to struggle out of the grip of the social worker. Gina felt her heart break. Until her dying day she knew she'd never forget the look in her child's eyes as she left him in that corridor. ROS Quartiere Generale (Anti-Camorra Unit), Napoli Jack stood in the shaded background of the carabinieri central control room as Lorenzo Pisano's eyes flicked from monitor to monitor as he directed the helicopter unit and regular ground patrols.

'The GIS unit will get him,' said Sylvia. 'They're the best in the country. There's no escape.'

Jack's attention was glued to the live pictures of the blue Fiat, picked out by a white spotlight from the helicopter. 'They're a front-line anti-terrorist command unit as well, aren't they?'

'Si,' said Sylvia, watching the same feed. 'They're based in Tuscany but Lorenzo pulled them into a local barracks as soon as he heard of the hit on Finelli. He'd have used the local ROS unit but everyone's already deployed. So today we get the big boys.'

They listened while Lorenzo re-angled the metal coiled flex of a desk mic and ordered two pursuit cars to get in front of the Fiat.

'Rolling block?' asked Jack.

'I think so,' said Sylvia. 'If we can get two, maybe three cars in front of the Fiat, that will slow him down. Then we can feed another couple behind and alongside and force him to a stop.'

'Giacomo will shoot his way out,' said Jack. 'I'd hate to be in the front cars.'

'They're special ops vehicles. Bulletproofed. Not like the tin cans the rest of us drive.'

Lorenzo had headphones on. He slipped off the left cup and turned to face Sylvia and Jack. 'Word from the street teams, Valsi and Mazerelli are both confirmed dead. Crime Unit medic says it looks like JHP slugs in both bodies.' Autostrada del Sole Whatever happened, surrender was not an option. Salvatore Giacomo was not going to lie down and whimper like a dog. He glanced left and right in the wing mirrors. Through the fog he could see the full beams of the approaching carabinieri cars.

They would try to get past him. Try to block him in. And he knew he couldn't stop them all.

He glanced ahead and spotted an upcoming slip road, an exit just west of Trecasse.

The lights behind him glowed brighter. Engines roared closer.

He was going too fast to make it.

But he did.

The Fiat shed 20,000 kilometres' worth of rubber as he veered out of the grey haze of fog and headlight glare and off the autostrada.

He couldn't tell whether any of the pursuit cars had made it after him. He guessed not.

The Fiat clipped a barrier on the winding exit road. Spun sideways off the autostrada. Squealed to a stalled halt in an unlit street.

Sal started her up, found second gear and burned his way east, still parallel to the E45.

The helicopter's Nightsun was struggling to find him. It glowed in the fuzzy sky like a cobwebbed old light bulb in a vast dark cellar.

He pulled a left into Via Alessandro Manzoni. In his rear-view he could see two white dots in the far distance.

They were still on him.

Still.

But not close enough.

Oncoming headlights reflected in the road spray. It was raining now as well as foggy. He glanced up, squinted out of the driver's side window. The white belly of the GIS chopper was illuminated for a second, then vanished. They were breathing down his neck.

Sal pulled a hard right, then an even tighter left.

He was on Via Canarde San Pietro, heading north towards the darkness of the Mount Vesuvius National Park.

Soon they would be on his ground.

His sacred ground.

His killing ground.