Gerald Seymour - Red Fox

The escort car had locked its bonnet under the rear bumper of Vellosi's vehicle. Here they had all survived and now they were scattered with their machine-pistols. One in cover behind the opened front passenger door. One away in a shop doorway. The third man in Vellosi's guard stood erect in the middle of the street, lit by the high lights, his gun cradled and ready and pointing to the tarmac lest the prone figures should rise and defy the blood trails and the gaping intestinal wounds and offer again a challenge.

Only when the street was busy with police did Vellosi unlock his door and emerge. He seemed old, almost senile, his steps laboured and heavy.

'How many of them do we have?' he called across the street to the man who had been his shadow and guard these three years, whose wife cooked for him, to whose children he was a godfather.

'There were three, capo. All dead. They stayed beyond their time. When they should have run they stayed to make certain of you.'

He walked into the lit centre of the street and his men hurried to close around him, wanting him gone, but reading his mood and unwilling to confront it. He stared down into the faces of the boys, the ragazzi, grotesque in their angles with the killing weapons close to their fists, only the agony left in their eyes, the hate fled and gone. His eyes closed and his cheek muscles hardened as if he summoned strength from a distant force.

'The one there – ' he pointed to a shape of denim jeans and a blood-flawed shirt. 'I have met that boy. I have eaten at his father's house. The boy came in before we sat down at dinner.

His father is a banker, the Director of the Contrazzioni Finan-ziarie of one of the banks in the Via del Corso. I know that boy.'

He turned reluctantly from the scene, dawdling, and his voice was raised and carried over the street and the pavement and to the few who had gathered and watched him. 'The bitch Tantardini, spitting her poison over these children. The wicked, con-taminating bitch.'

Hemmed in on the back seat of his escort car, Francesco Vellosi left for his desk at the Viminale.

With the headlight beams flashing back from the roadside pine trees, hurling aside the startled shadows, the little two-door Fiat ground its way into the inky night leaving behind the cluster of the Cosoleto lights. Giancarlo forced the motor hard, regardless of the howling tyres, the crack of the fast-changed gears and the drift of Harrison's shoulders against his own. His purpose now was to be rid of the vacuum of the darkened roads and fields, the silhouetted trees, and the lonely farmhouses. He was a town boy and nurtured the urban fear of the wide spaces of the country where familiarity was no longer governed by a known street corner, a local shop, or a towering cement landmark.

He drove on the narrow road to Seminara scarcely aware of the silent man beside him, contemplating perhaps the gun that rested on the shelf of the open glove compartment. The P38, ready and willing even though its magazine had been rifled in the barn, still with sufficient cartridges in its bowels to remain lethal.

Through Melicucca where the town was asleep, where men and women had taken to their early beds heavy with the wine of the region, the weight of the food and the condemnation of the priest for late hours. Through Melicucca and beyond before even the lightest sleepers could have turned and wondered at the speed of the car that violated the quiet of their night. He turned sharp left at Santa Anna because that was the route to the coast and the main road.

And the task was only begun. Believe that, Giancarlo. The starting of a journey. The pits, the swamps, all ahead, all gathering, all conglomerating. They are nothing, the boy said sound-lessly to himself. Nothing. He slowed as they came to Seminara.

A town where people might still be alert, where his caution must be exercised. He'd studied the map in the field near the barn, knew the town had one street; the mayor's office would be there.

A formidable building it was, but decayed and in need of money for repair. Heavy doors tight shut. Sandwiched between lesser constructions and close to the central piazza. Illuminated by the street lights. He braked, and the man beside him lunged forward with his hands to break an impact.

'Get out of the car,' Giancarlo said. 'Get out of the car and put your hands on the roof. And stand still, because the gun watches you.'

Harrison climbed out, his shoulder still paining, did what he was told to do.

Giancarlo watched him straighten, flex himself, and shake his head as if internal dispute had been resolved. He wondered whether Harrison would run, or whether he was too confused to act. He held the gun in his hand, not with aggression but with the warning implicit. He would see the P38 and he would not play the idiot. The movements on the pavement of the Englishman were sluggish, those of a netted carp after a protracted struggle.

He would have few problems with this man. From the shelf he took a pencil and a scrap of paper on which had been written on one side the petrol purchases and additions of the car's owner.

'We will not be long, 'Arrison. Stand still because it is not sensible that you move. Afterwards it will all be explained.'

There was no response from the sagging trousers that he could see against the opened door. He began to write with the bold flourished hand that had been taught him by a teacher at the Secondary School of Pescara who prided herself on copperplate neatness. The words came quickly to the paper. There had been time enough on the train to formulate the demand that he would make.

Communique 1 of the Nuclei Armati Proletaria, We hold prisoner the English multinational criminal, Geoffrey Harrison. All those who work for the multinational conspiracy, whether Italian or foreigners, are exploiters of the proletarian revolution, and are the opponents of the aspirations of the workers. The enemy Harrison is now held in a People's Prison. He will be executed at 09.00 CET, the 27th of this month, the day after tomorrow, unless the prisoner of war held in the regime concentration camp, Franca Tantardini, has been freed and flown out of Italy. There will be no further communiques, no further warnings. Unless Tantardini is freed from her torture the sentence will be carried out without mercy.

In memory of Panicucci.

Victory to the proletariat. Victory to the workers. Death and defeat to the borghese, the capitalists and the multinationalists.

Nuclei Armati Proletaria.

Giancarlo read over his words, screwing his eyes at the paper in the dim light. As Franca would have wanted it. She would be satisfied with him, well satisfied.

"Arrison, do you have any paper, something that identifies you? An envelope, a driving licence?' He thrust the gun forward so that the weight of his message would be augmented, and accepted the thin hip wallet in return. Money there, but he ignored it, and drew out the plastic folder of credit cards. Euro-card, American Express, Diners Club. American Express was the one he coveted.

'Perhaps you will get it back at sometime, 'Arrison. With this paper push it under the door. It is important for you that it is found early in the morning. Push it carefully and the card with it, that too is important.'

Giancarlo folded the sheet of paper and wrote on the outside leaf in large capitals the letters of the symbol of the Nappisti. He handed the paper and the credit card to his prisoner and watched him bend to slide the two under the main door to the office of the mayor of Seminara.

'You will drive now, 'Arrison, and you will be careful because I am watching you, and because I have the gun. I have killed three men to come this far, you should know that.'

Giancarlo Battestini slid across into the passenger seat, vacating the driver's place for Geoffrey Harrison. Their stop in the centre of Seminara had delayed them little more than three minutes.