‘You’ll break your legs, you bloody idiot! Hold on!’
Eddie let out more rope as quickly as he dared, then lurched back as the weight on the line suddenly vanished. He looked down at the piazza. Jared scrambled back upright in front of the startled onlookers. ‘I’m okay!’ the younger man called. ‘Send him down!’
The Yorkshireman hooked a quick-release clasp attached to the rope’s other end through metal eyelets in the sack, then hauled it up. Despite his rail-thin build, Lobato was heavier than he’d expected. ‘Must be that giant fucking brain,’ he grumbled as he manoeuvred his cargo to the window.
One of the bodyguards groaned, levering himself on to his side. The other man stirred with a moan of his own.
The moment they saw Eddie, anger and adrenalin would blow away the lingering fog of their unconsciousness. He had to speed up the escape—
‘Jared!’ he shouted. ‘Get ready to catch him!’
‘What do you mean, catch?’ Jared replied, before realising he meant it literally. ‘No, wait!’
But Eddie had already tossed the billionaire through the window.
25
Lobato plunged towards the piazza five floors below.
Eddie hurriedly grabbed the rope – not the coiled length attached to the sack, but the one Jared had used to reach the ground. He clamped both hands around it and jammed a foot against the heavy wooden desk to brace himself—
The rope yanked tight.
His palms seared as the top layer of skin was rasped off, but he kept hold and bent his raised leg to absorb the shock as he caught the falling man. Straining to support Lobato’s weight, he looked out of the window.
The sack was swinging ten feet above the ground. Jared stared up at him, aghast. ‘I wasn’t ready to catch him!’
‘I wasn’t ready to drop him!’ Eddie shot back. One of the bodyguards sat up and saw him. ‘Wait until I get down there!’
‘How are you going to get— Oh shit!’
The Israeli got his answer as Eddie jumped from the window.
He dropped, the rope immediately pulling taut, and gasped in pain as he slammed against the Scuola’s wall. But his fall had been slowed, Lobato acting as a counterweight. The sack bumped back up the side of the building as Eddie descended.
Not quickly enough. Lobato weighed less than he did, but the difference was not huge. Realising he couldn’t rely on gravity alone, Eddie leaned backwards until he was practically horizontal, soles scraping against the wall as he walked himself down it.
He passed the ascending sack—
One of the bodyguards peered out from above, bewildered by the scene – until he realised who was in the canvas bag. He ducked back, shouting to his comrade.
‘Now get ready to catch him!’ Eddie yelled as he reached a tall arched window on the first floor. Jared darted into position below as the Yorkshireman returned to the vertical . . . then let go of the rope.
He fell – and caught the window ledge. The onlookers gasped.
The rope shot back up to the window. A yelp of sheer panic came from above as the bodyguard realised his boss was plummeting towards the pavement. Jared’s own reaction was barely less frantic.
Eddie had already let go of the marble sill, dropping to the ground. Even rolling on touchdown, the landing was still painful, but he ignored it and threw himself in front of Jared as the bag hurtled towards them.
The Israeli caught it, but not even a Mossad agent at the peak of physical fitness could take the weight of a man falling from nearly four floors up. He collapsed – on to Eddie, the Englishman’s breath pounded from him as his friend and the unconscious Lobato bounced off his back.
‘Chara!’ Jared yelled. ‘Eddie! Are you okay?’
‘Fine,’ Eddie croaked. His ribs hurt, but there was none of the piercing pain of a broken bone. ‘All those years . . . of Macy using me as . . . a trampoline paid off.’
Both men looked up as the rope jerked. They had not taken the full force of Lobato’s touchdown by themselves; the bodyguards had grabbed the line just before it disappeared, slowing the billionaire’s fall. ‘Time to go,’ said Eddie, staggering upright. He released the clasp, the rope springing upwards, then started to drag the sack across the piazza towards the red boat Maximov had moored. Jared hurried to help him.
One of the bodyguards shouted down at them angrily before retreating into the office. ‘They’ll be here in a minute,’ Jared warned.
‘They’ll have to join the queue,’ said Eddie. A museum guard at the VIP arrival area was already gabbling into a phone. ‘Come on, quick!’
They shoved the sack into the boat’s rear. Eddie jumped into the front as Jared unhitched the mooring rope. ‘Go!’ shouted the Israeli. He turned and sprinted east, back past the Scuola Grande. ‘See you in five minutes!’
‘Four would be better!’ Eddie retorted, starting the engine. He jammed the throttle to full power and peeled away from the piazza, heading west.
The canal he entered was the Rio de le Muneghete, one of the many narrow channels cutting through the old city. Its speed limit was just five kilometres per hour. This being Italy, that restriction was ignored by practically everybody – but even the locals yelled as he powered past them, kicking up a frothing wake that smacked against the walls and sent other traffic rocking uncontrollably. He glanced back to see large men running out of the Scuola, then the museum was blocked from view by the canal’s curve.
He looked ahead again. The plan would require precise timing. He kept his hand on the throttle as he headed for his first rendezvous.
‘He went that way!’ yelled one of Lobato’s bodyguards as he reached the quay. The speeding boat’s churned trail was impossible to miss. ‘Get after him!’
The men with Lobato in Pinto’s office had been joined by another pair. The first two each commandeered a moored craft, the new arrivals vaulting into a third behind them. Any objections the museum staff had to the triple piracy were silenced as the last boat’s passenger drew a gun. Onlookers retreated fearfully as the three vessels swept away.
The leader followed his quarry’s wake into the Rio de le Muneghete, weaving between the rolling locals. The walls quickly closed in, brickwork cliffs on both sides as the canal curved northwards. He didn’t know how far ahead Mr Lobato’s kidnapper was, but he should come into sight as the waterway straightened—
A low bridge ahead – and just beyond it was the red boat!
It surged away in a spitting spray of froth, but the three pursuing boats had closed the gap enormously. The bodyguard clenched the steering wheel in angry triumph. It wouldn’t be long before they caught up, and then the bastard who had kidnapped Mr Lobato would get what was coming to him.
Eddie glanced back as he accelerated to see the first of the three boats roar under the bridge, its driver ducking beneath the low archway. The Yorkshireman had lost valuable seconds, and didn’t know if he could make them up again.
He powered past more moored boats, sending them thudding against the walls. Under another small crossing, then the way ahead was clear for about a hundred metres until a sharp bend in the canal. Just before it was a further arched bridge.
The distance was eaten up with alarming rapidity. Eddie aimed for the gap between the stationary boats on each side of the canal, bracing himself for the turn – and flicking his gaze towards the figure standing at the waterline.
Ana.
He roared past her – ducking and turning hard as he swept beneath the bridge, just as she kicked out at the prow of one of the stationary boats.
It swung into the path of the oncoming vessels. The leading bodyguard saw it in time to throw his craft around it, glancing off another moored boat before recovering and powering under the bridge.
The man behind him was not so lucky.
He tried to swerve, but was going too fast. His boat hit the obstruction and was flung into the base of the bridge, wood and fibreglass smashing into splinters.
The third boat snaked
through the wreckage before following the other vessels around the corner. Ana paused long enough to see that the crashed bodyguard was still alive before hurrying up the steps and disappearing down a nearby street.
Eddie heard the collision, but realised that the trap had not caught all the pursuing boats. He cursed and pressed on. The new leg of the canal was longer, an almost straight two-hundred-metre stretch before the next turn—
A crack from astern, and a bullet slammed into the back of his boat.
He dropped as low as he could as another round tore past barely a foot overhead, putting his boat into a serpentine weave. The next shot went wide. A glance back. The man in the lead boat was firing one-handed, steering with the other. Ahead, the canal began to curve to the left. Eddie followed it around, his pursuer forced to take the wheel with both hands as a sharper bend approached.
Eddie made a hard turn through the corner, flinging a wave against the wall of another of Venice’s grand buildings. The bodyguard swung after him—
A bright yellow ROV burst out of the water into his path.
Matt Trulli had positioned Ringo under the surface, waiting for Eddie to pass – and now the little submersible unleashed its new cargo. A simple compressed-air cannon, a short length of plastic tubing connected to a small gas cylinder, fired its contents into the air ahead of the onrushing boat—
Where the stun grenade exploded.
The Israeli weapon was designed to be used indoors. Outside, the effect of its dazzling flash and ear-splitting bang was reduced, but the detonation still overpowered the bodyguard’s senses.
Only for a moment . . . but that was enough.
He recovered – and saw the building looming before him. He screamed, spinning the wheel—
Too late. The boat skittered sidelong into the wall with a stucco-shattering impact. The man was thrown into the water as his battered craft rebounded.
The third boat slowed. Its pilot angled towards the frantically splashing bodyguard, but his companion shouted angrily, pointing after the disappearing Englishman. With a half-hearted apology to the floundering man, the driver powered away in pursuit.
Another one down, though it still wasn’t enough to ensure Eddie’s escape. But at least he had opened up some distance—
He reached a crossroads – and saw a motor launch in police livery rumbling towards him from the right. He immediately turned to surge past before it could block him. It was the route he had actually meant to take, but the appearance of the police complicated things enormously.
The launch swung sharply about to follow him, but before it could finish its turn, the bodyguards’ boat burst out of the side canal and rushed past it, the wake almost sending the cops into a wall. Furious at the affront, they charged after the fleeing boats, a wailing siren echoing off the surrounding buildings.
The new canal was wider, but also more busy, plodding cargo barges joining the smaller boats and tourist gondolas. Eddie ducked through a narrowing gap between two of the lumbering vessels, then brought his boat under a pair of bridges. He was now approaching the intersection with the Rio de San Polo, a main artery leading to the Grand Canal. His pursuers would expect him to head down it to reach the broad waterway.
Instead, he turned hard to the right, swinging into the Rio de San Stin.
It was far narrower. Not only were boats moored on each side, but traffic was traversing the canal in both directions. He weaved through the logjam. The bodyguards rounded the corner to follow him, the police launch behind them. It was much faster than its prey.
Ahead was a bridge, a ninety-degree turn beyond. Eddie could see people on the crossing, the siren’s wail catching their attention.
He knew two of them. As he drew closer, Olivia and Macy stepped apart, stretching something out between them.
He rounded another boat, its occupants yelling abuse at him, then raced under the bridge and hurled his craft into the hard left turn. Lobato’s bodyguards and the police passed on either side of the boat he had just overtaken. His two pursuers were almost level, the bodyguards narrowly in the lead. They reached the bridge—
The net that Macy and Olivia had been holding splashed into the water just ahead of them.
The bodyguard driving realised the danger and threw his vessel hard over to avoid it, spinning around – but the cops, focused on their quarry, didn’t see the net until it was too late.
Their boat rode over it, ploughing the floating nylon lines under its keel—
The roar of its engine became a shrill of disintegrating metal as the net entangled – and instantly jammed – the propeller. The cops were thrown to the deck, then the police boat continued onwards in abrupt silence, thunking against a flight of stone steps.
The Yorkshireman was already speeding down the Rio dei Frari, but was now out of tricks. The net had been his team’s last booby trap. To escape, he would now have to rely on his own skill – and as much luck as he could muster.
He thundered under two more bridges, then made another sharp turn into a new waterway. This was the narrowest yet, barely wide enough to take two boats abreast. Nobody was traversing it, fortunately, but another right-angled turn was coming up fast. Behind, the roar of another outboard told him Lobato’s men had entered the canal.
He made the turn – as a gunshot echoed between the buildings, shards of red brickwork exploding mere feet behind.
A low metal bridge loomed right in front of him, forcing him to duck or lose his head. ‘Shit!’ he gasped as he cleared it, hoping his hunters didn’t have quick reflexes.
The hope was dashed as both men stooped low to whip beneath the bridge. The passenger was the first to rise, raising his gun again – only to duck once more as he saw an even lower bridge in their path.
Eddie had to drop practically beneath the gunwales to avoid decapitation. Bushy ivy dangling from the old stonework lashed him, leaves flying like green shrapnel, then he was through. Tourists gawped at his narrow escape, their amazement repeated seconds later as the bodyguards followed him under.
The canal curved to the right, widening enough to let three boats pass abreast – much to Eddie’s relief, as he swerved past a dawdling motorboat. Even with the extra space, his craft still scraped a wall. He grimaced, then roared under another bridge. There was a junction beyond, an arm of the canal leading left, but he kept going straight, seeing more open water ahead.
He had reached the Grand Canal.
One of Venice’s busiest waterways, and certainly its most famous, the Grand Canal divided the old city in two, languidly snaking from north-west to south-east. Eddie had emerged about three-quarters of the way down its length, but even though this section was not nearly as great a draw for tourists as the likes of the Rialto Bridge, visible about half a kilometre to his left, it was still packed with traffic. Motorboats, cargo barges and traditional gondolas mingled with large vaporetti water buses and luxurious pleasure cruisers.
The passengers aboard the cruiser Eddie had to swerve to dodge found their enjoyment abruptly curtailed, dirty spray drenching them as he accelerated into the canal. He swung in front of a long barge, then powered across the bows of a vaporetto going the other way.
His pursuers took a wider route to follow him. That reopened the gap a little, but the space between the two boats was still too slim for the Yorkshireman’s liking.
The sweeping wooden arch of the Ponte dell’Accademia traversed the curving canal ahead, specks of sunlight glinting off the hundreds of padlocks attached by lovers to the bridge’s railings despite the Venetian authorities’ regular rounds with bolt-cutters. His destination was just beyond it – and so was Jared.
He hoped . . .
Jared pounded across the Ponte dell’Accademia, weaving between the tourists. He had taken a more direct route than Eddie, the Englishman deliberately following a circuitous path to give the younger man as much time as possible to reach their rendezvous.
He glanced at his watch. Five minutes had already passed. He
was late – and the sight of the red boat cutting perilously close to the piers along the north side warned him that he was almost out of time.
Resurgent adrenalin pushing him on, he reached the shore. His destination was on the far side of the Palazzo Cavalli-Franchetti, forcing him to go all the way around its walled grounds. Would he get there before Eddie?
He would have to.
Eddie’s boat swept beneath the bridge. More piers stabbed out into the Grand Canal, candy-striped poles marking the palazzo’s private mooring – but he could see his final turn beyond them, a narrow channel between the art gallery and its equally grand neighbour.
He made a sweeping turn into the shadowy tributary. Lobato’s bodyguards followed, another gunshot accompanied by a burst of shattered plaster from the brickwork just behind him.
They were still willing to kill him to save their boss. And now he had entered a dead end.
The little canal terminated at a wall at the southern end of the Campo Santo Stefano: a wall towards which he was racing at full speed.
‘Hope you’re here, Jared!’ he said, aiming for its base.
Two sturdy planks angled out of the water to the piazza’s edge six feet above, forming a ramp. Eddie had no time to make a precise approach. He drove straight at the beams and braced himself—
The boat hit the planks, the impact flinging him backwards as his craft skidded up the makeshift ramp and smashed through the railing at its top. People screamed and ran as the vessel spun across the piazza, keel rasping over the stone paving.
Eddie clung to his seat as the boat ground to a halt. The sack in the rear thumped into the footwell. Dizzied, he looked back at the narrow canal. Lobato’s bodyguards would try to follow him up the ramp . . .
And would fail.
Jared had reached the canal’s end mere seconds earlier. He grabbed a rope tied to one of the planks, and pulled it off the piazza’s edge into the water.
The bodyguards saw it splash down just before they reached it. The driver jammed the throttle into reverse and hauled on the wheel – but in the confined channel, he had nowhere to go.
The Spear of Atlantis (Wilde/Chase 14) Page 25