of the darkness in front of him like a maddened elephant. He fired one more three-round burst. More torn metal flew away from the black sedan’s engine compartment.
But then it was time to go.
Smith dove away from behind the parked car, landed on the hard surface of the road with a teeth-rattling jolt, and then rolled frantically off into the grass. Behind him, the Mercedes slammed into the Volvo’s front end with an earsplitting crash. Locked together for a brief moment by the impact, the two cars slid up the road in a grinding spray of broken glass, shattered fiberglass, and crumpled metal. Slowly, the Volvo spun away from the crash, opening up the right-hand fork of the Y-intersection.
With a scream of rending steel, the first Mercedes scraped past and rattled away, heading uphill toward Orvieto. Chunks of torn tread from three blown tires scattered behind it, bouncing and tumbling across the road in what looked like slow motion. Sheets of glowing sparks whirled across the gravel and asphalt surface. And then the second black sedan, also running on its metal wheel rims roared past the mangled Volvo, grinding slowly after the lead car.
Smith rose to one knee. He opened fire again, walking bursts up the road toward the fleeing vehicles. Kirov stood close by, shooting calmly, still aiming low. Fiona came sliding down the slope toward them, snapping a new magazine into her pistol. Her face was a mask of frustration.
“They’re getting away,” she yelled.
Kirov fired another burst, holding the submachine gun on target as it sprayed copper-jacketed rounds uphill. Then he shook his head. “No,” he told her. “Look.”
With a final, coughing roar from its dying engine, the first Mercedes sputtered to a stop about two hundred meters up the road. Four men scrambled out and sprinted uphill, still fleeing toward Orvieto. One of them had a shock of thick white hair and ran awkwardly, clutching a briefcase in both hands.
Another, taller, had hair that glowed pale blond in the moonlight. “Malkovic and Brandt,” Smith realized. He jumped up. “Let’s go!”
Ahead of them the second sedan careened off the road, trying to pass the stalled first car. Instead, it bottomed out in the soft soil, lurched forward a few
more meters, and then ground to a halt. Four more men jumped out of this one. Two fanned out across the road, weapons in hand, evidently intending to act as a rearguard for their retreating comrades. The last two, one of them a slender man with a white beard carrying another case, hesitated for a moment while looking up the long, open stretch ol road leading to Orvieto. Then they turned instead and faded uphill off the road, moving in among the trees and bushes growing at the base of the cliffs.
Jon heard footsteps pounding up the road behind him and whirled around, raising his MP5.
Randi Russell came loping out of the darkness, pistol in hand. “That was Renke!” she growled, pointing to where the two men had disappeared among the shadowed trees. “You and Kirov and Devin take the rest of them. I’ll go after Renke!”
Smith nodded quickly. “Good luck.”
Randi clapped his shoulder as she ran past him. “You, too!” Then she turned and began climbing the slope.
Jon stripped the spent magazine out of his submachine gun and slapped in a fresh clip. He turned to Kirov and Fiona. “You ready?”
They nodded, eyes alight?gripped, like him, by the strange exultation, verging on madness, of combat.
“Right, then,” Smith snapped, already starting to move up the road. “Let’s finish this!”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Smith ran up the left side of the road while Kirov and Fiona moved up on the right. Far ahead of them now, still illuminated by the moonlight, he could see Malkovic and Brandt and their two bodyguards hurrying away, straining to reach the top of the plateau before their pursuers came within range. Renke and one of the other gunmen had vanished up the slope to the right, disappearing among what looked like small orchards of peach and apple trees and rows of grapevines that were planted right up to the base of the cliffs. Small yellow signs by the side of the road pointed in that direction, identifying the area as Tombe del Crocifisso del Tufo, the site of an ancient Etruscan necropolis, a city of the dead.
It was the men lurking up ahead who most concerned Jon now. Two of Brandt’s gunmen had stayed behind while the others fled, probably under orders to kill or at least delay the Americans chasing after them. One had dropped into cover among the bushes and trees on the downhill slope.
The other was hiding somewhere to the right, in the rocks and brush higher up.
Smith frowned. Charging straight up the open road toward those guys was a really good way to get killed. Courage under fire was one thing. Suicidal madness was quite another.
He slowed down and then dropped to one knee, carefully scanning the tangled vegetation along both sides of the road over the barrel of his submachine gun. Kirov and Fiona went prone off to his right, peering ahead with their own weapons ready.
“See anything?” Jon hissed.
Kirov shook his head. “No.” He glanced over at the American. “But we have to keep moving, my friend, despite the risks. All this shooting will soon draw the police.”
Smith grinned back at him. “You don’t think the Carabinieri will buy our storv about being tourists out for a midnight stroll?”
Kirov snorted. He hefted his MP5 and ran a quick finger over the dark camouflage paint smeared across his cheeks and forehead. “For some reason, Jon, I doubt it,” he said drily.
“Then we’d best cut the chitchat and get going,” Fiona said, sounding both amused and irritated at the same time. She scrambled to her feet and started up the road again, staying close to the verge. “I’ll draw their fire. Then you two shoot them.”
Startled, Kirov turned, putting out a hand to stop her. “No, Fiona. Let Jon and me handle this. We were trained as soldiers. You were not. The risk is too great.”
“Oleg is right,” Smith agreed.
She shook her head impatiently. “No, he’s not, Colonel. And neither are you.” Fiona showed them the pistol in her hand. “I can’t count on hitting anything with this at more than twenty or thirty meters. Those submachine guns you’re both earning give you an edge at longer range. So let’s make use of that.”
Jon grimaced. Reluctantly, he shrugged at Kirov. “She’s right.”
The Russian, scowling himself, nodded heavily. “Yes. As she is so often.”
He dropped his hand, though not without a gruff plea. “But please do not get yourself killed, Fiona. If you do, I ? “
His voice thickened and then fell silent.
Smiling now, Fiona patted Kirov gently on the head. “Yes, I know. I’ll be as careful as I can.” Then she walked on ahead, crouching slightly.
The two men waited a few seconds and then followed her, staying low, moving cautiously through the grass on the edge of the road and keeping to the shadows wherever possible.
One of Brandt’s gunmen, Sepp Nedel, lay hidden behind a little pile of weathered, brush-covered rocks. He peered down toward the road, watching for any signs of movement over the sights of his Micro-Uzi. He settled the weapon’s folding stock firmly against his shoulder, waiting calmly. Shooting Renke’s unarmed scientists had been a pleasant enough diversion, but this duel against armed opponents was more to his taste.
There was a faint stir among the bushes across the road. Nedel sneered.
That was typical of Fyodor Bazhenov, nervous and twitchy as alwavs when holding a gun. ‘Hie onetime KGB man was competent enough with explosives. But he was a menace to himself and others in the field.
Something flickered at the edge of his vision. Someone was coming up the road. The German tightened his grip on the Uzi and shifted his aim. Now he could see a black-clad figure drifting closer, crouching brief!}’ from time to time to watch and listen. A scout, Nedel thought. The correct move was obvious. Let this one pass unharmed and then kill the others who would come later.
