The First Apostle (33 page)

“Too bloody far. That chopper’ll overtake us any time now.”

The helicopter lifted off the moment the four men belted themselves in, and turned immediately to the west, heading toward the edge of the plateau and the route Mandino knew Bronson must have taken to get back to the main road.

He turned around in his seat. “We
must
stop them before they reach the road,” he said, and pointed to the man sitting beside Rogan. “You’re the best shot. When we get in front of them, use your Kalashnikov, and try to disable the jeep. Aim for the tires and the engine if you can. If it won’t stop, then hit the cab, but I’d prefer the two of them alive if possible.”

The man took his AK-47 assault rifle, removed the curved magazine and cleared the round from the breech. He checked that the cartridges were loaded properly, slammed the magazine back home and cocked the weapon.

“I’m ready,” he said.

The other man reached over, slid the side door of the helicopter backward and locked it in the open position.

In the front seat, Mandino leaned forward, searching the terrain below the helicopter for the fleeing off-road vehicle. Then he pointed ahead, at a plume of dust rising from the rough and barely visible track that snaked down the side of the hill in front of them.

“There it is,” he yelled.

The pilot nodded, pitched the nose of the helicopter farther down and accelerated, heading toward a point lower on the hillside.

Bronson was driving harder than he’d ever done in his life. He had no doubt who was in the helicopter. And he was equally certain exactly what would happen to them if they didn’t get away.

Angela grabbed at Bronson’s arm and pointed out to the left, where the helicopter was passing alongside, about fifty yards away at low level, effortlessly overtaking them.

“There it is,” she shouted.

Bronson took his eyes off the road for a bare second. The chopper was close enough for him to see that one of the men was holding an assault rifle.

“Shit, they’ve got a Kalashnikov,” he yelled. “Hold on tight.”

The helicopter descended in front of them, dropping out of sight behind a clump of trees.

“Are they landing?” Angela asked, frantically.

“Probably not. The pilot will try to position the chopper to block the track down to the road, so that the man with the Kalashnikov can shoot out our engine.”

“So what can we do?”

Bronson slammed the brakes hard, then swung the wheel to the left. “We get off the track,” he said.

He steered the vehicle well away from the rutted pathway, picking the best route he could between the trees and bushes, all the time keeping the jeep heading down the hill toward the road.

Bronson’s guess had been right. The helicopter pilot had dropped the aircraft down almost to the ground, and it was straddling the track, its right side and the open door facing up the hill, the man with the Kalashnikov watching for his target.

But after a couple of minutes the Toyota still hadn’t appeared.

“He must have turned off the track,” Mandino said. “Lift off again and find him. This time don’t lose sight of him when you descend.”

In a few seconds the pilot spotted the jeep again. The Toyota was following an erratic and unpredictable course down the hill. The vehicle was swerving from side to side as Bronson drove around trees and other obstacles on the hillside.

“Drop down over there,” Mandino ordered, pointing toward the base of the hill, where trees grew thickly and the track snaked through a gap between them. Bronson would have to drive through there if he was to get down to the road.

“Do you want me to land?” the pilot asked.

“No. Just get into a low hover and stabilize the aircraft. My man will need a steady platform to give him the best chance of hitting the target.”

As the Toyota careered down the hill toward them, the helicopter swooped down. The Toyota was less than a hundred yards away when the man with the Kalashnikov began to fire single shots.

“Showtime,” Bronson muttered as he saw the muzzle flashes. He swerved the Toyota even more violently to make it as difficult a target as possible. Then he took his hand off the steering wheel just long enough to pass Angela the Beretta pistol he’d taken from Mandino’s bodyguard. It was smaller than the Browning and he thought it would be easier for her to manage.

“Hold it in your right hand,” he shouted over the noise of the engine, “but keep your finger off the trigger.” He glanced sideways quickly. “Now take hold of the top of the pistol, that bit that’s serrated, pull it straight back and then let go.”

There was a distinctive metallic clicking sound as Angela pulled back the slide and released it, feeding a cartridge into the chamber of the Beretta.

“Now look at the back of the pistol,” Bronson continued, still weaving the Toyota unpredictably across the rough ground. “Is the hammer cocked?”

“There’s a little metal bit here pointing backward,” she said, looking at the weapon.

“That’s it. Now, holding it in your right hand, move your thumb up until you find a lever on the side.”

“Got it.”

“That’s the safety catch,” Bronson said. “When you want to fire the pistol, click that down. And keep it pointing out of the window all the time, please,” he added, as Angela moved the weapon slightly in his direction.

“God, I’ve never fired a gun before.”

“It’s easy. Just keep pulling the trigger until you’ve emptied the magazine.”

When they were about fifty yards from the helicopter, Bronson lowered the window on Angela’s side of the Toyota.

“Start shooting,” he yelled.

Angela aimed the Beretta at the helicopter and flinched as she pulled the trigger.

Bronson knew it would be an absolute miracle if she hit the chopper. Firing a relatively inaccurate weapon from a vehicle traveling at speed over a plowed field was hardly conducive to accurate shooting. But helicopters are comparatively fragile, and if they could make the pilot think there was a possibility of a bullet damaging his craft, he might lift off and out of danger. In the circumstances, it was the best they could hope for.

As Angela fired her first shot, a bullet smashed through the windshield and passed directly between them and out through the Toyota’s tailgate.

The shattering glass unnerved them both. Bronson swerved hard to the left, then right again, the Toyota barely staying upright.

Angela screamed and dropped the pistol. The weapon fell into the gap between her seat and the door. She scrambled to grab it, but couldn’t reach.

“Christ, sorry,” she shouted. “I’ll have to open the door to get it.”

“Don’t. It’s too late now. Brace yourself.”

They had no options left. Bronson accelerated the Toyota directly toward the helicopter.

Mandino was shouting at the man with the Kalashnikov who, despite the closeness of his target, was still finding it difficult to hit it.

The gunman fired two more shots at the rapidly approaching vehicle, and then the action locked open on the AK-47 as he fired the last round. He pressed the release to disengage the empty magazine, grabbed another one and slammed it home, but in those few seconds the Toyota had covered another ten yards, and actually seemed to be accelerating. He cycled the action to chamber a round, selected full auto and brought the sights to bear again. At that range—now probably less than twenty yards—he simply couldn’t miss.

The pilot watched the approaching jeep with increasing alarm. He lost his nerve when the Toyota got within about fifteen yards. He hauled back on the collective lever, gave the engines full power and the chopper leapt into the air.

At precisely the same moment, in the back of the aircraft, the gunman squeezed the trigger and sent a stream of 7.62-millimeter bullets screaming directly at the jeep. His aim was good, but the helicopter’s lurch into the air took him by surprise and the shells plowed harmlessly into the ground.

“What the hell are you doing?” Mandino screamed at the pilot.

“Saving your life, that’s what. If that jeep had hit us, we’d all be dead.”

“He was playing chicken. He’d have swerved at the last moment.”

“I wasn’t going to take that chance. I’ve seen what’s left after helicopter crashes,” the pilot snapped, as he turned the chopper toward the main road, again following the plume of dust kicked up by the Toyota.

As the Toyota roared underneath the helicopter, Bronson accelerated even harder and turned back onto the rough track.

“Jesus Christ,” Angela muttered. “I really thought you were going to hit it.”

“It was close,” Bronson conceded. “If he hadn’t pulled up, I was going to try to swerve around the front of him.”

“Why not the back?” Angela asked. “There was more room behind him.”

“Not a good idea. There’s a tail rotor there. If you hit that, you end up looking like sliced salami. By the way,” he added jokingly, “I hope you chose the fully comprehensive insurance option when you hired this. There seem to be a few holes in it now.”

Angela smiled briefly at him, then peered behind them. “The helicopter’s heading straight for us again.”

“I see it,” Bronson said, looking in the external rearview mirror. “But now we’re only a couple of hundred yards from the road.”

“And we’ll be safe then?” Angela didn’t sound convinced.

“I don’t know, but I hope so. The last thing these guys need is publicity, and shooting up a car on a public road from a helicopter is a pretty good way of guaranteeing plenty of media interest. I’m hoping they’ll just follow us and try to take us down when we finally stop. In any case, there’s nowhere else we can go.”

At the end of the track, Bronson glanced both ways, then swung the Toyota onto the road and floored the accelerator pedal. The diesel engine roared as the turbo kicked in and the big jeep hurtled down the road toward Piglio.

Mandino was hoarse from shouting instructions.

“Thanks to your total incompetence,” he yelled at the pilot, “they’ve reached the road.”

“I can take them there,” the gunman said. “They’ll have to drive in a straight line, and they’ll be an easy target.”

“This is supposed to be a covert operation,” Mandino snapped. “We can’t start blasting away with automatic weapons at a vehicle on the public roads.” He tapped the pilot on the arm. “How much fuel have you got?”

The man checked his instruments. “Enough for about another ninety minutes in the air,” he said.

“Good. We’ll slow down and follow them. Sooner or later they’ll have to stop somewhere, and then we’ll take them.”

“I can’t see the helicopter,” Angela said, craning her neck at the window of the Toyota. “Perhaps they’ve given up.”

Bronson shook his head. “Not a chance,” he said. “It’s somewhere behind us.”

“Can we outrun it?”

“Not even in a Ferrari,” he replied, “but I hope we won’t have to. If we can just make it to Piglio, that should be enough.”

Traffic was light on the country roads, but there were enough vehicles around, Bronson hoped, to deny their pursuers any opportunity to drop the helicopter down to the road to try to stop them. Then he looked ahead and pointed at a road sign.

“Piglio,” he said. “We’re here.”

The helicopter was holding at five hundred feet. As the Toyota entered the town below them, Mandino instructed the pilot to descend farther.

“Where is this?” Mandino asked.

“A place called Piglio,” Rogan said. He was tracking their location on the topographical chart, in case they needed to summon help from the ground.

It was a small town, but they couldn’t risk losing their quarry in the side streets. The Toyota had been forced to slow down in the heavier local traffic, and the helicopter was almost in a hover as the men watched carefully.

“Keep your eyes on it,” Mandino ordered.

“Nearly there,” Bronson said, as he turned the Toyota down the side street, following the signs for the supermarket. Seconds later he swung the jeep into the parking lot, found a vacant parking bay, stopped the vehicle and climbed out.

“Don’t forget the relics,” he said, as Angela followed him.

She tucked the towel and its precious contents carefully into a carrier bag. “Got the camera?” she asked.

“Yes. Come on.” Bronson led the way to the main entrance of the supermarket, where several shoppers were staring up at the helicopter, now in a hover about a hundred yards away.

“Land as close as you can,” Mandino told the pilot.

“I can’t put it down in the parking lot—there’s not enough open space—but there’s a patch of wasteland over there.”

“Be as quick as you can. Once we’re out, get back into the air. Rogan, stay in the aircraft and keep your mobile close.”

The pilot swung the helicopter around to the right and descended toward the area of grass that adjoined the supermarket parking lot.

“The Nissan’s right there, isn’t it?” Angela said.

“Yes, but we can’t just climb in it and drive away. That would be a dead giveaway. We’ll wait here.”

Bronson pulled Angela to the left-hand side of the entrance hall and carefully watched the helicopter.

“They’ll have to land to let someone out to follow us on foot,” he said, “and they can’t put the chopper down out there in the parking lot—it’s too crowded. Right, there he goes.” He watched the helicopter move away and start to descend.

“We walk, not run,” he said, squeezing Angela’s hand. Without even a glance at the aircraft, they crossed to where Bronson had parked the Nissan. He unlocked it, climbed in and started the engine, then reversed out of the parking bay and drove the old sedan car unhurriedly away from the building.

Thirty seconds later Mandino and his two men ran into the parking lot, heading toward the Toyota, the helicopter hovering above them.

But Bronson was already driving away, heading for Via Prenestina and Rome.