'When will we be?' Maria's voice asked from the floor of the backseat.
'No time soon, I hope, lassie. Jason, jump in.'
This was going to be it. Either the balky Volvo cranked when Adrian popped the clutch or they had lost valuable time trying to escape. At least they had the chance, Jason thought. Had the Volvo an automatic transmission, there would have been no possibility of using the car's own motion to replace the starter motor.
The Volvo shuddered and jerked, its tires skidding on the dirt, then stopped.
Nothing.
'Not fast enough yet. We'll give 'er a go again,' Adrian said with unwarranted optimism. 'Jason, kin ye fend those lads off a bit?'
The Sten wasn't known for its accuracy at any sort of range, and Jason would have cheerfully exchanged the silencer for a flash suppressor. A shot would be hard to trace by sound in these hills, but the fire from the muzzle would pinpoint their location.
Jason rested the machine gun on the roof of the automobile and flicked the selector to single fire. 'Soon's there's a chance of hittin' anything. How 'bout you get this buggy going?'
His answer was another shuddering jerk as Adrian popped the clutch again. This time the effort was rewarded with the sound of the engine. The Volvo fishtailed with the sudden application of power, steadied, then lurched forward. Jason fired two or three rounds behind them before jumping into the rear seat. Unlikely he would hit anyone, but it served notice to their pursuers to keep their distance.
'There's a paved road coupla kilometers on,' Adrian announced. 'We get there-'
The Volvo hit a bank, lifting the right wheels.
'If you dinna turn on the headlights, we'll na' make it to the paved road,' Clare observed. 'Easy to run right inta the edge o' the' combe w'out seein' it.'
'She's right,' Jason observed. 'We're at the edge of their range, anyway. More chance of us crashing into something or running over a cliff than getting hit.'
The road in front of them was suddenly visible in the car's lights. Jason marveled that they had not smashed the radiator against one of the boulders lining the rocky trail like irregularly spaced sentries. Or hit the unforgiving rock that, in several spots, towered above the path. This would have been difficult four-wheel-drive territory. That the Volvo had not left its oil pan or transmission housing along the way had to be the sheerest of luck.
''Ere we be.' Adrian was turning onto what at first looked like a continuation of the uneven path they had followed. Closer observation revealed dirt-colored pavement, cement or asphalt, Jason couldn't be sure. Whatever the material, it served to join a series of tooth-loosening potholes.
At least here there was small chance of unexpectedly hitting a stone larger than the car. As it was, the road was carved from the hills that formed the spine of the island, a serpentine, narrow two-lane that looked barely wide enough for two medium-size vehicles to pass.
Over Adrian's shoulder, Jason could see the speedometer wavering around eighty-five kilometers, less than fifty miles an hour. Even so, he nearly hit the headliner with each bounce.
He tightened his seat belt to the limit, noticing Maria doing the same.
Through teeth clenched for fear of biting his tongue, Jason asked, 'Where're we going?'
'Cagliari,' Adrian answered, not taking his eyes off the road.
'Where?'
'Cagliari,' Maria said. 'Provencal capital. Italian naval base.'
'Only town of any real size on the island,' Adrian added. 'Figgered you could head to wherever you were goin' and I could drop Mother off, send her home to visit with the wee grandchildren back in Scotland until all this blows over.'
'You need to figger again,' Clare said. 'I'll not be shipped off like some mail-order parcel, not after th' years I spent waitin' for you while you were in the service, waitin' to see if you came home upright or in a box.' 'But y' kenna come along,' Adrian argued. 'There's people back there mean us all harm.'
'I'm no more in danger than th' lass,' she said, referring to Maria.
Swell.
Barely escaped from Eglov's killers and Jason was listening to a domestic argument that sounded like which child would get to use the sole ticket to the county fair.
He was about to speak up, thank Adrian for his implicit offer to help, and decline, when the interior of the Volvo was filled with light from behind.
'Jesus wept!' Adrian grunted. 'You'd think this was the bleedin' M4. Somebody's drivin' way too fast.'
It didn't take a clairvoyant to guess who.
Jason guessed Eglov and his men had reconnoitred the area well enough to know the paved road was the likely, if not only, escape route. They had also obtained a car with a lot more power than the aging Volvo. It was gaining quickly, already well within range of the AK-47s.
'Anywhere we could turn off, maybe lose them?' Jason asked.
'Na' but winding road for the next ten kilometers,' came the reply.
A burst of gunfire, this time close enough to hear, came from the right front of the pursuing car and went wide right.
Jason involuntarily ducked.
The swaying, bucking motion of fast travel made any sort of accurate shooting unlikely. Whether the silver- bullet-firing six-guns from Silver's back by the Lone Ranger or a Walther PPK from a speeding Aston Martin driven by James Bond, a hit was the result of far more luck than skill. The sudden shifts in wind, direction, and elevation all made a moving gunfight more spectacular than deadly.
Nonetheless, Jason felt compelled to fire a few shots in return, with equal lack of result.
'They'll be right up beside us in minutes, Jason observed. 'Got any ideas?'
Adrian nodded. 'Aye. In a moment we'll reach a wee straight. Remember the bootleg?'
Jason did.
He sat back down in the seat to cinch his seat belt tighter. 'Ladies, I'd make sure your seat harness is supersecure.'
'Jesus!'
The sudden expletive made Jason forget his seat belt.
The edge of the headlights was reflecting from a truck pulled across both lanes of the narrow road.
The Eco men must have had a backup crew farther down the road, one that could commandeer the truck now effectively hemming the Volvo in. They also could not have picked a better spot: to the right was sheer wall, to the left the abyss.
Adrian slowed as though to surrender. Jason knew what was coming and hoped Clare and Maria had followed his suggestions to make themselves secure.
'We have enough room?' Jason asked, instantly wishing he had kept his concern to himself.
'Na' matter,' Adrian said, keeping an eye on the rearview mirror as the car behind closed the gap. 'Goin' over th' edge's better 'n what those sods have in mind for us.'
At a point no more than fifty feet from the truck, Adrian hit the gas, momentarily gaining on the surprised driver of the pursuing car. Just as the gap started to close again, Adrian stood violently on the brake, at the same time snatching the wheel toward the emptiness of the road's outer edge.
The snap of the steering mechanism broke any adhesion between rubber tire and paved road. At the same time, centrifugal force threw the automobile's rear end outward, causing a spin.
'Chicago! Al Capone!' Adrian chortled. 'Elliot Ness!'
The maneuver had its origins in Prohibition bootleggers' moonshine-filled cars dodging pursuing revenue agents, one of a number of driving tactics taught in commando training worldwide, perhaps the only one with truly American roots. Although Jason suspected the trick was more at home on the winding dirt roads of Appalachia than the streets of Al Capone's Chicago, he had to admit Adrian executed it perfectly.
At the exact moment the car was facing the opposite direction, Adrian hit the accelerator, regaining traction, and the Volvo leaped like a springing cat in the direction from which it just come. Jason had only an instant to see astonished faces as they whizzed past the chasing vehicle.
Unable to stop or turn so unexpectedly, the car that had been behind-it looked like an older Mercedes as it flashed past-skidded into a sideways drift. For an instant the two left wheels pawed empty air, and Jason thought it
