The alley terminated in a cobbled yard at the entrance to what must once have been some kind of warehouse or factory, but was now a late-night dance club. Its doorway was a pair of steel shutters, and the red light strobing from inside made it look like the gates of Hell. A mob of rowdy guys in their twenties were clustered around the cobbled yard, clutching beer bottles and yelling drunkenly in Dutch at some skimpily-clad Italian girls teetering inside the club in high heels. From the way the Dutch boys were taunting the bouncers, Ben guessed they’d been refused entry to the place. The bouncers were both heavy guys, bowling-pin forearms folded across bench-press chests. One wore a goatee and the other had a shaven head with tattoos over his ears. Their body language screamed do not fuck with us, but the Dutch guys were either too drunk or too cocky to heed it. It looked like a situation about to kick off. Sure enough, when Ben was still a few metres from the door, one of the Dutch crew lobbed a bottle. It narrowly missed the shaven-headed bouncer and shattered against the brick wall behind him.
The bouncers moved surprisingly fast for such big men. They waded in, and in two seconds three of the Dutch guys were on their backs. Ben slipped into the unguarded entrance before the scuffle turned into a full-on war. In his wake he could hear the yelling as the cops came racing down the alley and found their path blocked by a fistfight in progress. There was a screech of sirens and brakes at the top of the alley as at least two or three more police cars arrived on the scene.
Ben walked quickly through a bare brick corridor, the thump of the music building up to a head-filling roar. The corridor turned a corner and then opened up into a large, murky space that was heaving with bodies and smelled of beer and spirits and hot skin and the mixed perfume of the girls. The lights stuttered red, green, white over the sprawling mêlée of people dancing, making everything look like slow motion.
Beyond the crowded bar, Ben saw what he was looking for – the dim neon exit sign over the back door. He pressed on through the throng. Hearing an angry clamour behind him he glanced back over his shoulder and saw maybe eight, maybe ten Carabinieri swarming into the club, provoking jeers and catcalls from the dancers. They shoved people out of the way as they pressed aggressively through the crowd, scanning left and right. Their hands were on the butts of their holstered pistols and they looked serious.
Ben pushed on towards the exit. A hand on his arm made him turn abruptly, and he saw it was a girl. She was about twenty, skinny with dark hair and heavy eyeshadow. Her face and neck and the bare shoulder where her loose-fitting top had slipped down were shiny with sweat; her eyes were bright as she smiled at him and mouthed inaudible words that he guessed were an invitation to dance. She looked a little high, a little unsteady on her feet.
He hesitated a moment. Two of the cops were drawing close through the crowd. They’d be searching for a guy on his own. Someone nervous and furtive and aiming to put as much distance between himself and them as possible. Someone who’d stand out a mile in here. Ben smiled at the girl and nodded, mouthed ‘Yeah, sure’. She pressed up close to him and began to sway her hips. He danced with her, matching her movements. She closed her eyes and threw back her head and raised her arms high in the air.
The cops came brushing by. Ben took the girl’s arm, whirling her round so his back was to them, and she laughed, and so did he. He grabbed an empty beer bottle from a nearby table and pretended to swig out of it, acting drunk. She laughed louder, her teeth flashing red in the lights.
A few metres away, a tallish guy with fair hair and a slim build was making his way over to the bar. The two cops grabbed his arm and whisked him round. They shone a torch in his face, glanced at one another, then shook their heads and shoved him away.
Time to go, Ben was thinking. He’d picked up the dance moves pretty well by now. Basically you thrashed around, looked completely out of control and grinned like an idiot: that way you blended perfectly into the crowd. Still gyrating his hips and waving the beer bottle about, he guided the girl away from the dance floor and through the exit.
It didn’t lead outside, but through to a lounge where the mood was a lot more sombre and the emphasis seemed to be squarely on getting quietly slaughtered. Some guys were playing pool in one corner, and a few couples and assorted drinkers were clustered round the bar. A little grey guy in a rumpled suit was drowning his sorrows, an attaché case resting against the legs of his stool. Bad day at the office, maybe. A little way from him sat a tired-looking blonde in a low-cut outfit, knocking back what definitely wasn’t her first gin and tonic that night. Nobody was doing much talking. A few faces were turned towards the small TV over the bar, gazing uninterestedly at the passing images even though the sound was muted. From the opposite corner came a draught of cooler air, and Ben noticed another doorway marked TOILETS leading out to a narrow passage littered with beer crates.
The girl he’d been dancing with was watching him expectantly, either because she thought he was going to buy her a drink, or else take her somewhere more private. She staggered a little as she clutched his arm. He asked her name, and in a slurry giggle she told him it was Luisa. He took her wrist and pushed her gently back. ‘Thanks for the dance, Luisa,’ he said. ‘Make sure you get home safe tonight, OK?’
She frowned at him.
‘Hey,’ someone said, nodding at the TV. A few people glanced over.
The smiling face of Urbano Tassoni was plastered all over the screen. Then the picture cut to a dark street, swirling lights of emergency vehicles and a lot of official milling around as a good-looking brunette Ben recognised as the reporter Silvana Lucenzi talked soundlessly into a mike. The heading ‘BREAKING NEWS: URBANO TASSONI MURDERED’ scrolled in bold white letters across the bottom edge of the screen. The barman idly reached for a remote and turned up the volume. The next image to flash up on the screen was Ben’s face, the photo he used for his business website.
‘. . . suspect is believed to be armed and extremely dangerous,’ Silvana Lucenzi was saying. ‘The public are being warned not to approach him under any circumstances . . .’
Faces at the bar turned slowly to stare at Ben. The guys playing pool had laid down their cues and were standing there, frozen. Luisa frowned more deeply, the confusion in her eyes turning quickly to a shade of fear.
Ben shrugged. ‘Don’t believe everything you see on television,’ he said, and then moved for the exit.
Just a little too late. As he made it to the doorway, there was a shout and he turned and saw five cops push through into the lounge bar. The barman pointed but they’d already spotted him. Their pistols were drawn. One was clutching a taser gun.
Ben didn’t much feel like having sharp wire darts embedded in his flesh, connected to an incapacitating electric current that would have even the biggest, most violent guy down on the floor in seconds, struggling as helplessly as a landed fish while cops surrounded him and trussed him up in handcuffs. He ducked away out of the exit, kicking over a stack of crates that blocked his path. Cool night air washed over him and made his clothes feel clammy as he ran down the narrow passage, slammed through the ramshackle door at the end and out into a deserted backstreet.
Racing footsteps and yelling voices came right after him. He ran harder, didn’t look back. After a hundred metre sprint, the backstreet spat him out on the main road. His pursuers weren’t far behind him. He could hear them radioing for support.
He bolted across the street, narrowly avoiding being hit by a passing car. On the other side of the road was an iron railing and a sign for a subway station. He vaulted the railing, went thundering down the concrete steps, shouldered hard through the swing doors. He passed the ticket office without slowing down, and an unshaven guy in a uniform yelled as he hurdled the turnstile. Signs pointed this way and that as gleaming white-tiled tunnels branched off in different directions. Ben sprinted down the nearest one, then hammered down a slow-moving elevator. Another junction, another split-second decision, another snaking tunnel.
Deep under Rome, the
atmosphere was thick and stifling. As Ben approached the station platform, a breathy, whistling slap of warm air woofing up the tunnel and a crescendo of wheels on tracks told him that a train was coming.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Fiumicino airport, Rome
After the dank Manchester weather and then the air-conditioned Cessna Citation jet, the sultry Rome night felt like a sauna to Darcey as she stepped down to the tarmac of the private runway. She knew right away that the thin black cotton polo-neck sweater she’d changed into on board was going to be way too heavy. First time in Italy, and she was caught out like a damn fool tourist.
Three vehicles were waiting nearby, two unmarked Interpol BMWs and a police Alfa Romeo. Next to them were clustered a group of four plainclothes agents, watching her expectantly as she walked up to them. A quick round of businesslike handshakes, and one of the agents did the introductions. He was tall, bald and rail-thin in a tailored jacket and open-necked shirt. His English was excellent. ‘And my name is Paolo Buitoni,’ he finished. ‘I’m your liaison officer in Rome. Anything you need.’ He stole a puff of his cigarette and exhaled through his nose.
‘Buitoni?’
‘Like the pasta. No spaghetti jokes, please.’ Buitoni smiled, wrinkles creasing at the corners of his eyes.
‘I don’t like spaghetti,’ Darcey told him.
‘That’s a pity.’
‘And I’m not here to appreciate humour,’ Darcey said.
‘So I see.’
‘And lose the cigarette, Paolo.’
Buitoni shot her a look, then flicked the cigarette away and orange sparks tumbled across the tarmac. He motioned towards one of the BMWs. ‘There has been a development within the last few minutes,’ he told her as they walked over to it. ‘The suspect Ben Hope evaded arrest earlier tonight and is on the run in the city as we speak.’
She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘Uh-huh. The first I hear of this is now?’
Buitoni shrugged. ‘We only just heard ourselves.’
‘Nobody was to make a move until I got here.’
‘You’ll find things tend to work that way in Italy.’
‘Not any more. What’s the target’s location?’
‘Our officers chased him into the subway system just seven minutes ago.’
‘Wonderful,’ Darcey said as he showed her to the rear of the BMW. The driver had the engine running. ‘A city subway system is an easy place to lose a fugitive. And this one’s already shown once tonight that he’s smarter than your police.’ She yanked open the door.
‘Not as easy as you might think,’ Buitoni said. ‘The Rome underground is still under construction. It has just two lines and only thirty-eight kilometres of track, compared with over four hundred kilometres in London. Believe me, there are few places for him to hide.’
‘Then I want the whole system sealed before he finds a way out of there. Set me up a cordon. Nothing goes in or out without my say-so.’
‘Being done. We’ll catch him. No problem.’
Darcey climbed into the back of the BMW with one of the other agents and slammed her door. ‘Let’s get moving, people.’
Buitoni got in the front passenger seat, and the car took off with a squeal of tyres. The second unmarked BMW followed, with the police Alfa bringing up the rear. As they left the airport the Alfa started up its flashing lights and siren. The night traffic parted for them as they hit the road for the city.
Buitoni turned round in his seat to pass Darcey an ID card and badge, and a handgun in a black fabric holster. She unclipped it. A Beretta 92FS, standard Italian police issue. It was heavier than the Glock she was used to, just under a kilo of chunky steel. The fat grip contained seventeen rounds of 9mm Parabellum.
‘How far to the scene?’ she asked, nodding at the speeding road ahead.
‘We’ll be there in fifteen minutes,’ Buitoni said.
‘Anything I need?’
‘You’re the boss, Commander Kane.’
‘Then get me there in ten.’
The driver put his foot down and the little procession of cars tooled into Rome in just a shade over eleven minutes. They screeched up outside a metro station that was teeming with police cars, vans and motorcycles and a milling crowd of uniformed cops. It was Darcey’s first glimpse of Italian Carabinieri with their red-striped trousers and Beretta machine pistols slapping their sides as they strode. She wondered how cocky they’d be if she told them how camp they looked in their knee-high leather boots. Buitoni must have seen her looking at them because he leaned close to her and said, ‘Your first time in Rome?’
‘And let’s get it over with,’ she said.
They were getting of the car when Buitoni received a radio call that left him frowning. ‘Hurry,’ he said, taking Darcey’s elbow to lead her towards the subway station entrance. She jerked the elbow away. ‘Talk to me, Paolo.’
As they ran down down the steps he explained: ‘We have CCTV footage of Hope boarding a train three stops down the line from here, just minutes ago.’
Darcey batted through the swing doors. ‘Is every station sealed?’
‘We’re working on it. But he hasn’t got off. Which means he’s still on board. The train is due to stop here any second now.’ They strode fast through the tunnels, surrounded by cops bristling with weaponry. Darcey scraped back her hair as they walked, fastening it with an elastic tie. She took the folded baseball cap from her back pocket, shook out the crumples and pulled it down tight over her head.
A moment later they emerged onto the platform where about a thousand guns were trained on the black mouth of the tunnel. Darcey did a check of her Beretta. Outwardly, she was calm, relaxed and totally in charge. She didn’t want Buitoni or anyone else to see that her heart was racing and her knees like jelly with the nervous excitement of waiting for the train to roll into the station. She almost let out an involuntary cry when she saw the lights in the dark tunnel. With a rumbling whine and hissing of brakes, the train emerged into the light and pulled up.
Darcey was so tense she thought her neck was going to snap. There was a wheeze of hydraulics and the train doors slid open. This time of night, there were just one or two passengers on board, and they stared in horror at the arsenal of weapons suddenly trained on them. Cops poured into every carriage. Up and down the length of the train, radios fizzed and chirped and officers milled around checking every inch inside and out.
It didn’t take long for the signal to reach back to Darcey.
‘He’s not here.’ Buitoni looked suddenly drained.
Darcey said nothing.
‘Don’t be angry,’ he said, watching her eyes. ‘You’ll know when I am.’
‘I don’t understand how this could have happened.’ Buitoni jabbed a finger back at the empty train. ‘He was on it.’
‘Then he’s obviously got off it, no? He just didn’t use a station.’
Buitoni looked blank.
‘You don’t understand what you’re up against here, do you?’ Darcey snapped at him. ‘Ben Hope isn’t your typical criminal, some little mafioso you’re going to scoop up off the street or nab asleep in the whorehouse with his nose full of coke. He’s SAS. You have no idea of the training these people have.’
‘How come you know so much about it?’
‘Because I’ve had more than a taste of it myself,’ she said. ‘My old unit, CO19, sends its personnel to train with SAS instructors. Physical fitness. Armed and unarmed close-quarter battle. Defensive driving. Hostage rescue. Escape and evasion. That’s just for breakfast.’
Buitoni raised an eyebrow. ‘Tough.’
‘Believe me, there isn’t a word for how tough it is. Just like there isn’t a word in English or Italian to describe just how royally you people have fucked up here.’ Darcey went on talking over the top of him as he started to protest. ‘Get it through your head. This man is ready for anything. He can disappear, resist capture for weeks on end, slip through the net of even the most dedicated manhunt. The hardest t
arget you’ve ever gone after, and what do you guys do? You make it easy for him. You let him make fools of you. Not that it was so hard. Don’t argue with me, Paolo. You know I’m right.’ She glanced up the empty tunnel, past the immobile train and the hordes of cops now leading the dazed passengers away. ‘I guess that even in Italy they must occasionally service and maintain the underground system?’
‘Though we could surely never live up to your superior example.’
She ignored his sarcasm. ‘Then it must be possible to shut down a section of electrified rail but keep some lighting going in there.’
‘I think we can manage that.’
‘Do it.’
Buitoni talked in his radio. A moment later he got a call back and told her it was done.
‘Good. We’re going in.’
Buitoni stared at her. ‘Who’s going in?’
Darcey pointed at him, herself and the crowd of cops on the platform. ‘All of us. And I want another fifty searching from the other end, where Hope boarded. Somewhere along the line he’s got to be there.’
Within three minutes Darcey and Buitoni were at the head of the party flushing out the underground tunnel. Away from the station, the atmosphere was stifling and oppressive. She wasn’t used to this heat. The cotton polo-neck was sticking to her back. Every so often a dim lantern glowed against the sooty walls, but the lighting was poor and for most of the time the tunnel was in darkness except for the bobbing beams of their Maglites. There was nothing moving ahead of them, only the occasional black scuttling shape of a rat disturbed by their approach.
‘This is fun,’ Buitoni said as they trudged on, a few metres ahead of the rest of the troops.
‘How come your English is so good?’ she asked him.
‘My mother was from Gloucester. We lived in Britain until I was nine, then we moved to Rome. I’ve lived here ever since.’
‘You know this city pretty well, then.’
The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET Page 185