Viper

106

ROS Quartiere Generale (Anti-Camorra Unit), Napoli Lorenzo Pisano drove his fist into the surface of the control-room desk, 'Porco Dio! ' The mild-mannered Major was in full rage. 'Porca miseria! Porca puttana! Porca Madonna! '

He turned and glared at Jack and Sylvia, as though it were their fault that the pursuit team had just found the Fiat abandoned after forking right at the end of Via Marsiglia.

Salvatore Giacomo was gone.

'The fog is so damn bad out there. I'm going to have to bring the chopper down. Fuck it!' He hit the desk again. 'The ground teams can barely see their own hands, let alone find this bastard.'

Lorenzo wheeled away from them and barked orders into desk mics. Slowly his voice settled down and he found his normal level of calmness. A bank of control-room monitors showed a live feed from the helicopter as it landed close to San Sebastiano. Traffic cameras were almost blacked out, picking up only occasional bursts of headlights. Foggy pictures swirled in from the armoured pursuit cars, now parked and awaiting instructions.

On a lower screen a real-time satellite map showed in vivid colours the whole area in which the chase had taken place. And the dead end where Sal had vanished. The dark-green vastness of the Mount Vesuvius National Park dominated the north of the picture. The orange ribbon of the A3/E45 ran west to east. The pale blue of the endless Bay of Naples sagged across the south.

Sylvia pointed to the map. 'There's a railway stop just there. Giacomo could be on a train by now – going in either direction.'

Lorenzo threw up his hands. 'Or on a motorway – or down any of a dozen other minor roads. Or who-knows-fucking-where. We've lost him!' The major dropped his head between his hands. Cover of fog, cover of darkness, cover of the Camorra – it was as though every element of evil had conspired against him.

Jack moved towards the monitors. 'He'll head north-east.'

'What?' Lorenzo looked up. 'Why? Why do you say that? North-east will run him round Vesuvius and out towards Ottaviano.'

'This guy is going where he feels comfortable. Believe me, you bury bodies somewhere for five or ten years you get pretty comfortable around that area.'

Lorenzo was unsure. He knew he had only one more throw of the dice before Sal was really gone. Not just gone for now. Gone forever. He scratched his head. He could muster barely a hundred men, maybe ten to fifteen sets of cars from five different barracks. Time was ticking away. 'Why wouldn't he double back, do as Sylvia says, and catch the train? He could be up in Rome in a couple of hours.' Another thought hit Lorenzo. 'Worse still, if he rides the tracks fully east he could be in Sicily by the morning.'

'It's your call,' said Jack. 'But believe me, our boy is right here.' He ran his finger along the Parco Nazionale del Vesuvio. 'Get me out there and we've still got a good chance of finding him.' The Nightsun was gone.

Salvatore Giacomo had watched it drop to earth like a dying firefly.

He guessed how much distance he had on his pursuers. A kilometre. Maybe two or three at the most. Better than that, though, they wouldn't have a clue in which direction he was heading. Three kilometres in one direction meant their search circle had to be six in diameter. He couldn't remember the exact formula for pi, but he knew that it meant the cops would have to set a dragnet perimeter more than eighteen kilometres long. And they'd have to do it lightning fast. Not a chance. Not at this time of night. Not in this weather. And with every further kilometre he gained, then it became less and less likely.

Without the dull thwack-thwack of the helicopter blades he could hear himself panting as he ran through the foothills of the parkland. The darkness of the hills swallowed him. He ran hard. Ran until he was breathless. Then he ran some more.

Finally he stopped. Not because he wanted to, but because he had to. His lungs were on fire. His heart rate was more than three times its resting beat. He had pains in his chest.

Twigs and branches cracked beneath his feet as he ground to a halt. One minute. One minute's rest, then he'd run again.

As his breathing slowed he noticed that his legs, arms and face had been ripped by brambles and branches. In the morning, trackers would be able to see traces. They'd pick him up easy. But not now. Right now they'd find nothing.

His minute was up.

He ran again. Lorenzo rolled the dice and took his chance on Jack.

To be sure, though, he spread his bets. He sent search teams to the central train and metro station in Naples. He mobilized all the support he could from local carabinieri barracks. And he called in favours from the polizia, both state and municipal.

Four GIS members – the ones from the helicopter – continued tracking Sal from where he'd abandoned the Fiat. They fanned out in the thickening fog. Helmet and torch lights flickered on the sodden hillsides. Radio crackle broke the humid silence as they struggled to establish search patterns in the dense darkness.

Four more GIS members headed east with Jack and Sylvia. Two drove in the car with them, two rode on their own.

Neither of the GIS men had a name. Neither spoke unless spoken to. They'd been briefed to do whatever Jack and Sylvia wanted and beyond that they retained their normal high levels of security. Everyone had live radio links back to Lorenzo who still held ultimate operational command.

The faces of the GIS men were covered by full balaclavas and Jack used their eye colours to name them Blue and Brown. Blue was driving; he was taller and older, his baby blues sat on creases and bags that put him in his late forties. Brown squashed in the back with Jack and helped him into a GIS combat suit, complete with the unit insignia of an open parachute and vertical sword.

'Serial killers of this guy's calibre have approach and escape routes from their burial scenes,' explained Jack, as Blue hurtled them at a frighteningly high speed through the fog. 'And I mean routes, not route.'

Sylvia shut her eyes as the passenger-side mirror slapped that of a passing car. 'So this is all still a game of chance?' She clutched a grab handle as the Alfa zigzagged into the outer lane of the autostrada. Its siren wailed again and its blue roof lights flashed incessantly.

'To some degree. This particular squirrel in the woods will have many routes, and they'll lie north, south, east and west of his burial site. He'll also have several safe points. Bolt-holes that he can hide in if he's really spooked.'

'The whole area's littered with old farms, disused cottages and outbuildings,' Sylvia added. 'I'll radio Lorenzo and see if we can get some bearings on them.'

Brown patted Jack's belt. 'This thing – it looks like a palmtop – is a tracking device. See – it registers your position here, but change the screen like this and you get full access to all real-time satellite imagery of the area.'

Jack was impressed. He saw their flashing dot exit the A3 and begin the ascent of the winding mountain road that he and Sylvia had taken the first time he'd visited the crime scene. He'd said at the time that he wanted to see it at night, needed to look at it in the same way the killer did. Now that late shift might just pay dividends.

'Okay?' checked Brown.

'Very. Very okay.'

'Good.' Brown handed him a balaclava and Jack rolled it down over his face.

'Now you look the part!' The GIS man's eyes smiled approval. 'You need these too. They're Gen 2 Night Vision goggles – are you familiar with them?'

'Pretty much. I've used them, but not this model.'

'It's simple. Usual head-mount strapping. Tell me if you can't work it. There's a Picatinny rail on both the handgun and the MP5 that I'm going to give you, and a second scope to fit it. Okay?'

Jack clamped the goggles on to his head and felt mildly claustrophobic. 'Forget the rifle. Up close I'm fine. Beyond twenty metres, the way I shoot, I've got more chance of bringing him down with a rock.'

'Should have brought him a shotgun and some buckshot,' shouted Blue from behind the wheel. Both GIS men laughed.

Sylvia switched from her radio to her phone. She picked up three missed messages from the Murder Incident Room. She called in and asked for Mancini. When she finally reached him, the update he gave her almost made her drop the phone.

One of her task forces had come up with an ID on victim Number One.

Numero Uno.

Jack's profiling was spot on.

There had indeed been a relationship between the killer and the victim.

A very special one.

The tailor's label had led them to an old family firm called Tombolini who'd made bespoke suits for city gents for more than a century. Their designs and attention to detail were legendary, and they still kept detailed accounts of every fitting and every suit they'd ever made. She clicked off the phone, let Jack finish giving directions to the driver, then updated him. 'Numero Uno was Luigi Finelli.' Sylvia twisted in her seat so she could see the impact on Jack's face. 'Salvatore Giacomo had murdered Luigi, no doubt on the instructions of the Don's own son, Fredo Finelli. Like you said, there was a good reason why Fredo kept him around for so many years.'

Static burst from Jack's belt. 'Jack, this is Lorenzo, can you hear me?'

'I can hear you. Loud and clear.'

'What's your ETA?'

'How long?' Jack shouted to Blue.

The driver took one black-gloved hand off the wheel and held it up.

'Five minutes. We'll be there in five.' The total blackness reduced Sal to a slow jog.

Arms outstretched, he felt like a blind man. Twigs and branches snapped back and sliced more ribbons of skin from his face. He licked his lips and tasted blood.

Clouds shifted in a sky as dense as iron filings. For a moment the curve of a pale moon shone like a scythe. Dim light hinted at the outline of a mountain track.

He knew where he was.

Close to safety.

The hesitant jog became a run. Uphill, eastwards, across the track, through a clearing he knew well. In the summer it would bloom with apricots and cherries. Geckos would fill the foliage; woodpeckers and turtle doves would warble and coo in the branches. It was near here that he'd walked with his mother after his father had gone. Near here that she'd told him he was never coming back and had explained why it was her fault. Near here that he'd sat for years and let his hatred for her fester.

Something caught his eye. The moon outlined a moving silhouette fifty metres ahead of him.

Sal dropped to the sodden earth.

His Glock jerked in his outstretched arms. The explosion flashed in his face. The boom barrelled across the open field.

The silhouette slumped.

Sal felt his heart bang. His finger stayed on the trigger. He wouldn't risk another shot unless he really had to.

The silhouette was grounded. Flat. Dead.

He got to his feet. Gun outstretched in classic pistol grip. He ran towards it. The moon slipped back into a sheath of rainy clouds. Damn it! He needed another two strides, to see the body.

'Merda!'

Barely two metres ahead of him lay the corpse.

A deer.

Nothing more than a fucking deer!

Sal cursed himself. He thought he'd known every animal that roamed the park. He'd been distracted and the thing had surprised him. It must have been a recent addition – damned conservationists.

He knew he should have been cooler. There was no need to have fired so quickly. Risked giving away his position. He wiped sweat and water from his face and slowly turned 360 degrees. Nothing. He held his breath and honed his concentration. He couldn't hear anything either. They'd have heard him, though. He was sure of it. Way back there, in the dark, in the unseen distance, their little soldier ears would have pricked up and they'd have heard him.