Eye of the Cobra (51 page)

Fifteen minutes later, followed by another plain-clothes policeman, she walked disbelievingly out of the front door of the station and into the darkness. The falling rain landed softly on her face, and she started to cry again.

Ricardo watched his hands shaking. This had never happened before. He had always managed to remain aloof from people, totally in command. Now that control was slipping. He had planned to be in peak form by the time he was back in Italy, but things hadn’t worked out that way. He was still taking cocaine. He needed it, especially now that everyone was after his blood. The competition was harder than ever before.

Phelps was maintaining the pressure, of course - but then Phelps had delivered on the financial side and was entitled to make demands. And Talbot was phoning him every twelve hours, giving him commands and making sure that he was controlling the delivery.

He was not driving well in the practice sessions. He was not handling Monza’s daunting combination of long, quick straights and slowing chicanes at all competently. And this was his home ground, Italy, where he should have been most comfortable.

He was angry, which only made his driving worse. Angry that he should have allowed himself to get into this position; furious at the way both Phelps and Talbot kept hounding him. But worst of all, he was angry with himself - enraged by the knowledge that he hadn’t been spending enough time on the track.

The first official practice was the next day, and he knew that he stood little chance of a position near the front of the grid if his present performance was anything to go by. De Rosner, the French ace driving for McCabe, was going all out; the speed at which he was lapping meant that he stood a very good chance of leading the race. Charlie Ibuka was almost equalling those times, gunning for first-place honours.

Ricardo pulled in after twenty lacklustre laps. Bruce was waiting for him in the pit lane.

‘What the hell’s wrong?’ he bellowed as Ricardo climbed out of the Shadow.

Ricardo pulled off his helmet. He couldn’t tell Bruce that the car was perfect, that it was he who was pulling it down.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I just can’t seem to get my act together.’

Bruce gestured for Ricardo to follow him out of the pits, and it was only when they were in the air-conditioned confines of the Calibre-Shensu motorhome, out of earshot of the rest of the team, that he gave Ricardo a piece of his mind.

‘What the fuck are you doing? Everything’s resting on you. Mickey says you tell him less than fuck-all about the car, so how the hell can you expect to have it set up perfectly for the race? I mean, Ibuka’s lapping faster than you!’

‘You ’ave got a cheek.’

‘Aito and Jack are relying on you, Ricardo. It’s not their fault you can’t get your act together. You know Ibuka can’t be expected to deliver throughout the race, he just doesn’t have the experience.’

Ricardo turned his back on Bruce de Villiers and let himself out of the motorhome. The hydraulic doors closed softly behind him. He was bristling with anger. He’d had enough of Bruce, he was sick of his demands. He had to get away from the trace and relax. He drove back into Milan feeling desper
ate. Why had he let other people interfere with his life?

Later, in the gigantic bath in the presidential suite of the Milan Hilton, he tried to relax. This was the town where he’d grown up, where he should have felt the most at home.
Instead, he was terrified and his fear was not unfounded. Talbot had warned him that the Mafia might start putting pressure on him.

The phone rang and he almost leapt in the air with fear. He picked up the receiver apprehensively.

‘Hello, Ricardo, it’s Rod.’ The voice hissed down the line like an angry snake.

‘Are you comfortable?’

‘No. I think that somebody is onto us.’

There was a laugh that sounded l
ike water running down a drain.

‘Just concentrate on making the delivery.’

Shit, shit, shit! He didn’t need this pressure, not on top of the driving. But he forced himself to concentrate. He had to co-operate with Talbot.

‘The consignment, when does it arrive?’

‘Early tomorrow. It coincides with the time of the first practice, as we agreed.’

‘Fine. You will arrange a contact for me?’

‘It is done. You will receive the delivery instructions in the same way.’

Ricardo wasn’t feeling any better when he put the phone down. He got out of the bath and poured out a line of the white powder on his shaving-mirror, then he took out the special gold tube and pushed it up his nose. He sniffed up the powder and almost immediately felt his old confidence return.

He decided he was going to have a night on the town - after all, he had money to burn. It was now time for him to enjoy his new-found wealth. He dressed casually and then took the lift down to the foyer, chucking his key across the counter and making his way towards the revolving doors that led out onto the street. It was dark outside, and Milan was just starting to buzz. As he came out he bumped into a redhead who was going the other way.

She stumbled, about to fall, and he caught her elbow. His eyes registered the fact that she had good legs, then that she had a superb body, and finally that her face was ravishing.

‘My apologies.’

‘You should watch where you’re going,’ she replied in Italian.

‘Perhaps I can make it up to you?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘How about dinner?’

She smiled. All he knew now was that he wanted her.

‘You are very forward,’ she said, ‘whoever you are.’

‘Dinner tonight?’

She ran a hand through her hair. ‘All right, I will cancel my other arrangements. I’ll meet you here in half an hour.’

Then she was gone, before he could say anything more.

He went back to reception and slipped the concierge a generous supply of notes.

‘Yes sir. Can I help you?’

‘Perhaps you can. The redhead. She is staying in which room?’

‘Ah, let me look.’ The man ran his finger down the print
out for that evening’s bookings.

‘She is in one of the suites on the top floor, right next to your own if I’m not mistaken.’

‘And her name?’

‘Mrs Jones.’

At the entrance to the airport cargo centre in Milan, two white minibuses awaited the arrival of a Lufthansa 747 freighter - their blackened windows revealing nothing to the outside world. In the distance, standing on the roof of a warehouse and looking through high-powered binoculars, a lean man with long drooping moustache scanned the outside of the cargo centre. He looked closely at the minibuses, then barked a swift series of instructions into the portable phone next to him.

Four pallets of Carvalho tyres from the 747 passed quickly through customs, since special clearance had been arranged. Half an hour later they were loaded into a container on the back of a forward-control truck, which pulled out of the centre and headed for the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza. The two minibuses tailed the truck at a distance.

Five minutes later, the truck was forced to stop at a police road-block. The driver stepped down from the cab - and collapsed as two bullets were pumped into the side of his skull. His assistant leapt down, shotgun in hand, but was cut down by a burst of automatic rifle fire.

The minibuses drew up, and armed men piled out. In the distance a large black limousine waited. One of the armed men went to the back of the container and cut through its locks with a set of bolt-cutters.

The black limousine rolled forward. A large old man with white hair stepped out. He lit up a cigar and gestured for the man with the bolt-cutters to open the doors of the container.

From inside the container a sub-machine gun erupted into life, spraying tracers across the tarmac. The old man was lifted up in the air as the bullets described a diagonal line across his torso and then threw him to the ground. He groaned, blood oozing from between his lips, and he died clutching the still burning cigar in his left hand.

There was a moment’s silence.

The men moved forward, thinking that whoever was inside the container must have run out of ammunition. Just as they got to the door, a man rose up from beneath the packing-cases in the container.

Time seemed to slow down. Intense sunlight and birdsong filled the air. Then the sub-machine-gun in the man’s hands erupted.

They had no time to react: the bullets smacked into them. One of them screamed, clutching at the holes in his stomach; another’s knee-cap splintered. One man managed to get off a shot that went far wide of its target, who pivoted, and pumped him full of bullets.

Then there was silence again.

Rob Talbot stepped warily out of the container. He took out two jerry-cans, leaving the doors of the container open behind him. Then he moved round to the front of the truck, pulling the bodies of the driver and his assistant away.

Behind him, one of the men, still half-alive, his eyes covered in blood, pulled out a grenade and tossed it into the container, then rolled over dead.

The explosion knocked Talbot flat on his face.

‘Fuck!’ he screamed as the container erupted in flames, destroying its cargo of tyres.

He went over to the minibuses and tossed a fragmentation grenade into each. Moments later they erupted into flame.

He took the jerry-cans, poured petrol over the bodies and set light to them. Then he jumped into the limousine and drove away. It had all taken less than three minutes, and the road behind him looked more like a war zone than a public highway.

That evening, in a backstreet of Milan in a deserted villa, a special meeting was called. The men arrived at different times, all old, all immaculately dressed - and all very angry. They sat around a bare wooden table, and Romano Ciolli addressed them. He took of his dark framed glasses to reveal his eyes, the colour of grey steel in his dead-white face. He spoke more through his nose than his mouth.

‘My friends. You know why you are here. Georgio, may he rest in peace, intercepted the consignment at Milan airport. He and his men were gunned down.’

He paced around the table. ‘I have instructed my assassin.
Finire!'

The men round the table laughed uneasily. They all lived in fear of death, especially the kind of death that was now being ordered by
Il Capo.

‘This is our territory,’ Ciolli went on. ‘We must set an example, otherwise the world will think we have gone soft.’

One of the men from around the table spoke.

‘
Signor.
You are sure he is the one?’

‘
Madonna!
He even has the nerve to appear in public in our country.’

‘You are quite sure?’

‘I have connections in Zurich. His money is laundered through Panama and deposited in Switzerland.’

The men all stared down at the table, as if they were praying in church.

‘He will die painfully,’ Ciolli said. ‘And he will tell us the name of the man who killed Georgio.’

Ricardo staggered into bed at three in the morning - tired and very frustrated. Elvira Jones had led him a merry dance. Right through the evening she had left him in no doubt of her intentions, and he was hard with excitement as they took the taxi back to the hotel. Then, outside his room, she had switched him off like a light-bulb. It was as if she had never given him the come-on.

She agreed to go with him to the Grand Prix the next day, and to dine with him the following night. Taking a woman out a second time before he had slept with her went against all his principles, but he had to admit that he was impressed by her tactics. Besides, he argued, she was a pleasant break from the pressures of the track.

Of course, he should not have gone out. He should have rested, mentally prepared himself for the race. Only lying tenth on the grid, he was going to have to fight to get to the front.

There was a knock on the door and immediately he was on his feet. Perhaps it was Elvira. Maybe she had changed her mind. He slipped on a silk dressing-gown and opened the door - then threw his hands in the air.

‘What do you want?’

Talbot ignored Ricardo’s histrionics. He sauntered into the room, sat down on the sofa and starting picking the dirt from his nails with a toothpick. Ricardo noticed an ugly scar on his forehead that had not been there during their previous meet
ing. He closed the door and remained standing.

‘What’s wrong?’ he said.

‘There have been problems.’

Ricardo’s right eyebrow twitched. He did not need this now. He needed to rest, to relax.

‘Someone knew about the delivery,’ Talbot went on. ‘They tried to corner me, but I killed every one of the bastards. It must have been a rival group.’

Ricardo went over to the bar fridge and poured himself a whisky. The glass shook in his hand. He never drank much before a race - but now he needed it.

‘You want me to make the delivery?’ he said.