James Twining - The Geneva Deception

‘We found the car after all,’ Allegra stepped towards him with a smile, switching back into Italian. ‘My friend just needs to pay…’

‘I said stay where you are,’ the officer barked again, his trigger finger twitching.

‘I don’t think he’s buying it any more,’ Tom whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

‘No,’ she agreed. ‘Get in!’

Diving through the open doors, she jammed the key in the ignition, fired up the engine and selected reverse. Tom jumped in alongside her, the crack of a gun shot whistling overhead. The car leapt backwards and swung out, swiping the rear wing of the car parked next to them and setting off the harsh shriek of its two-tone alarm.

‘You’re facing the wrong way,’ Tom shouted, their windscreen now engulfed by the glare of the squad car’s headlights as it accelerated, wheelsspinning, towards them.

‘Don’t tell me how to drive,’ she retorted indignantly, turning to look back over her shoulder. ‘If I’d tried to reverse out the other way I’d have wrapped it around the pillar.’

She stamped on the pedal, the car springing backwards and then yawing wildly as she fought to keep it straight, traces of foam making the wheel slick in her hands. Tyres screaming, they rounded the corner and then doubled back on themselves, the engine protesting with an angry whine as they sped down the central aisle, the revs climbing steeply.

Another shot rang out. They both flinched. One of their headlights exploded.

‘Head down a floor,’ Tom suggested. ‘Try and get far enough ahead of them to flip it around.’

She cannoned the wrong way on to the upramp, the gloom suddenly lit by a blaze of sparks as she glanced off the concrete and used the ramp’s curved walls to guide herself down to the second level.

‘Someone’s coming up the other way,’ Tom warned her as a second squad car, siren pulsing, stormed up the ramp towards them, the sweep of its headlights circling beneath them as it rose, like a shark closing in on a seal.

She steered them off the ramp on to the flat, the floorpan slapping the concrete with a heavy bang. From behind them came the angry squeal of brakes as the squad car chasing them fishtailed to avoid colliding with the second police car coming up the other way. Allegra sensed her opportunity. Leaning on the clutch, she yanked on the handbrake and jerked the wheel hard to spin them round so that they were facing forward, then shoved the car into gear and accelerated away along the left-hand aisle, tyres smoking.

‘You’ve got one right behind, one to the right,’ Tom shouted over the engine noise, pointing to where the second car was now speeding down the central aisle, roughly parallel to them.

‘They’re going to try and cut us off at the end,’ she guessed, before glancing down at her lap. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

Tom had leant forward and was feeling under the dashboard between her knees.

‘Looking for something,’ he said, straining to reach.

‘I can see that,’ she hissed through gritted teeth, his head almost resting on her lap.

‘There-’ he sat up, ‘the front air-bag switch. They put it down there in case you want to disable them.’

She nodded in immediate understanding.

‘Hold on.’

Checking in her mirror to see how close the car behind her was, she stamped on the brake. The ABS kicked in, the car juddering to a halt and forcing their pursuers to run into the back of them, the impact knocking them five or six feet forward and wrenching their boot open, so that it was flapping around like a half-opened tin can. What damage they had sustained was as nothing compared to the Fiat, however, which had, unsurprisingly, come off second best with both front tyres burst, the engine block almost in the front seat, and the bonnet concertinaed back on itself.

Allegra glanced across at Tom with a satisfied grin, but he was pointing at the second police car, which was already at the far end of the second aisle and rounding the corner towards them.

‘Here comes the cavalry.’

Dropping the Maserati into gear, she pulled forward and cut through a gap in the parked cars to her right to reach the central aisle and then spun round, so that she was facing back towards the exit ramp.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked with a frown.

‘Enjoying myself,’ she breathed.

Gunning the motor hard, she took off, glancing across at the squad car racing down the adjacent aisle to make sure she was far enough ahead, its surging shape strobing across her eyes as she caught glimpses of it through gaps between the cars and the concrete pillars.

‘Now!’ Tom called, pulling his seat belt tight across himself and hanging on to the grab handle.

She steered away from the line of cars to her right and then carved back in, ramming an Alfa square on. It jumped forward as if it had been fired from a cannon, colliding with the front of the VW parked only a few inches opposite it, which in turn T-boned the squad car as it came past, sending it ploughing into the line of parked cars on the far side of the aisle.

There was an abrupt, empty moment of calm, the squad car’s blue light pulsing weakly in the gloom. Then a jarring chorus of car alarms kicked in, each singing in a different key and to a different tempo, roused by the force of the crash.

‘Where did you learn to drive like that?’ Tom asked with an approving nod.

‘Rush hour in Rome.’ She smiled, breathing hard.

‘Do you think Johnny will notice the damage?’

She glanced in the mirror and saw the boot lid flapping around behind them like a loose sail, then looked along the crumpled bonnet at the cloud of steam rising from the cracked radiator.

‘It’ll polish out.’ She grinned.

Reversing out, the steering pulling heavily to the right, she nursed the car down the exit ramp and then made her way out on to the street.

Desposito Eroli, Via Erulo Eroli, Rome 19th March-9.23 a.m.

‘I thought you told these idiots to hold off until we got here when they called?’ Gallo said in an accusing tone as Salvatore hurried towards him, his notebook clutched to his chest.

Misfortune was snapping at his heels like one of those annoying handbag dogs, it seemed. First the triangulation of Allegra’s mobile phone signal, only for her to have vanished by the time they got there. Then a sighting reported by the officers here, only for her to slip through his fingers a second time, it now seemed.

‘I did,’ Salvatore sighed wearily. ‘Apparently they were trying to lock down the area in case they drove off.’

‘Lock down the area? The stupid bastards have been watching too much TV,’ Gallo glowered at the two men in neck braces being stretchered past him into a waiting ambulance. ‘It’s just as well she’s put them in hospital. She’s saved me the trouble.’ Cursing under his breath, he lit a cigarette.

‘You mean they saved you the trouble,’ Salvatore corrected him.

‘She wasn’t alone?’ Gallo glanced up, surprised, brushing his long silvery hair back behind each ear.

‘There was a man.’

‘What man?’

‘Not sure yet.’

A pause, as Gallo let this sink in. He’d not banked on her teaming up with someone. Certainly not this soon.

‘What were they doing here?’

‘They were seen opening up a black Maserati. Registration number…JT149VT,’ Salvatore read from his notebook.

‘Presumably not hers? Not on a lieutenant’s salary.’

‘Cavalli’s.’

Gallo span round to face him.

‘Cavalli’s?’ he spat. ‘What the hell was she looking for?’ He glared at the building behind him as if it was somehow at fault and owed him an answer. To his surprise, it gave him one.