Forgive No More

by Seb Kirby

  Yet these were locals, almost certainly from the lower floors of the building. No sign of his target yet. Perhaps Blake was trapped on one of the upper levels. Perhaps he would die there and save Heller the trouble of firing a bullet into his brain when he came out.

  Here came two more. Two he didn’t recognize but who looked more like they didn’t belong in this town. Yes, the two accomplices of Blake seen entering the building with him.

  But still no sign of his man. Or the girl.

  Minutes passed. The building was alight. There was the sound of emergency vehicles on their way, distant now but getting ever closer.

  Still no sign of Blake.

  Heller was on the point of putting away the rifle when two more survivors crashed out onto the street, their clothing steaming as they met the cooler air outside.

  When they removed the coverings from their faces and began coughing and drawing in lungfuls of fresh air, Heller could see that one of them was indeed the target he had traveled halfway across the world to kill. And, yes, the girl was with him.

  Heller lined up the rifle sights and prepared to pull the trigger.

  At this range, James Blake was an easy target.

  Chapter 50

  We’d made it out.

  Into clean air.

  Away from the blinding smoke.

  My lungs were about to burst. There was searing pain from the act of breathing itself. Everything depended on that simple act you took for granted ten thousand times a day. But now the simple act of filling the lungs with air was a slow motion exercise in pain.

  Yet somehow I managed to breathe and with every whooping breath, the pain lessened and I was able to realize we had escaped.

  I looked for Gina. She was nearby, struggling for breath like me.

  Arndt Schreiber was with her, caring for her. Ferrara was nearby, recovering from the ordeal.

  I moved towards them, still in pain, moving at a slow pace.

  I had a fleeting sense of being watched from afar but shook it off. I wanted to know Gina was safe but smoke inhalation had weakened me. As I struggled to move further, I slipped and fell.

  A shot rang out. It missed me and continued on, hitting Schreiber in the throat.

  I rolled on the ground and placed my body on top of Gina as more shots came in.

  She was covered in Schreiber’s blood.

  Chapter 51

  Heller cursed.

  At the moment he had the Blake target dead and buried, the man had somehow fallen out of sight and the bullet had struck another. One of the others who had emerged from the apartment. One of the visitor types. One of Blake’s accomplices.

  And now in the commotion caused by the unsuccessful first shot, Heller was being denied a clear shot at Blake.

  He thought back to East Texas. How he’d had Blake in his sights more than once and how events had conspired to allow the man to escape. Perhaps Heller was destined never to be able to kill this man who was so much the antithesis of himself. So weak where he was so strong. So unpracticed in killing where he was so knowledgeable. So lacking in the life energy that infused Heller’s mind and body.

  Perhaps that was it. Something was preventing him from killing the man because he was his perfect opposite. The matter to his antimatter that would result in annihilation if the two came together.

  The next three shots had missed their target.

  Blake was still alive.

  The girl was nowhere to be seen.

  Time to leave as police and firefighters were arriving.

  Chapter 52

  I looked over towards Ferrara who was trying to revive Arndt Schreiber with chest compression. He stopped pumping and lowered his head. “He’s lost too much blood. He’s gone.”

  Firefighters in fluorescent red uniforms moved in and cleared a path to allow them to inspect the burning apartment block. They soon deduced there was no prospect of sending in any of their own; the blaze was so intense and so well established there was no hope of survivors inside. A second team came forward and started injecting foam into the apartment to choke the flames.

  Gina stared down at her bloodstained and scorched clothes and couldn’t seem to control the shaking in her limbs. “I thought I’d be safe here. I should have known nowhere is safe from them.”

  I tried to calm her. “You’re going to be OK. You’re in shock. It will pass. We can take you somewhere safe.”

  “What about Arndt?”

  I lied. “He’ll be OK. You need to think about yourself. Getting through this.”

  She was crying. “I know he’s dead. It’s no use trying to keep it from me.”

  Paramedics moved in and surrounded Schreiber.

  He was pronounced dead at the scene.

  A female medic began attending to us. I didn’t want Gina to see Schreiber zipped into a body bag. “This woman is in shock. Can you get her out of here?”

  “Can you both walk?”

  I nodded. “We’re burned and bloodied but we’re OK.”

  “Then we’ll get you to hospital.”

  Gina pulled at my arm as the medic walked us towards the waiting ambulance. “I can’t do this. The police will have questions at the hospital and I’ll be as good as dead.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “From what you told me, you should know Italy well enough by now. Nothing stays secret for long, not even for an hour. The Landos have men everywhere. They’ll know where I am and they’ll come for me.”

  “So, what do you want to do?”

  “Find Ferrara and get out of here.”

  What Gina was saying about the police in Ostuni was a problem I shared. I would be in as much danger as her from a Lando place man.

  Gina occupied the medic by pretending she was having difficulty walking further. While she received attention, I found Ferrara further back in the line of the injured. I moved up close to him. “You’re OK?”

  He was less affected by smoke inhalation, having escaped the apartment before us, but he was in shock over the death of Schreiber in his arms. “First time I have seen a man die like this. A good man. Such a waste.”

  “But you’re OK?”

  “I will live. You?”

  “Lungs are sore, body aches, nothing more.”

  “And Gina?”

  “She’s in shock but she’ll make it. She wants you to get us out of here.”

  “You both need the hospital.”

  We were interrupted by the medic accompanying Ferrara. He was saying in Italian that I should return to my place in the line. That was good. As with many in this southern corner of Italy, he didn’t speak or understand much English. I took my chance to let Ferrara know Gina’s fears about going to the hospital and her need to escape.

  Ferrara understood. “She could refuse treatment. We could all do that.”

  “But the police will want witness statements. They won’t let us leave.”

  He managed a smile. “Then can you still run?”

  “I can give it a good try.”

  I hobbled back towards Gina, now waiting at the open rear doors of the ambulance and about to be assisted to climb aboard. The medic had gone before her and now stood on the rear step of the vehicle, waiting to help her up. When I was close enough for her to hear, I shouted, “Let’s go!”

  Gina turned and began moving towards me. It was clear she was in pain but she made good progress. The medic called out in Italian for us to stop but he made no attempt to leave the vehicle. For him, this was a matter for the police and at this moment they were supporting the firefighters attempting to halt the spread of the fire to neighboring buildings. I had time to see him pull out his phone and begin calling for assistance.

  By then we were on our way, joined by Ferrara. We hobbled down the narrow alleyway in front of the burned-out apartment and made it to the stone staircases leading back down to Via Roma. Each step brought a jolt of pain to my legs and back, strained and stressed by the escape from the apartment. Movement w
as no less uncomfortable for Gina but Ferrara was able to help, supporting her weight by placing her arm over his shoulder and neck.

  There was no sound of pursuit by the police. The medic’s call had resulted in no rapid response.

  Ferrara’s Giulietta was where we’d left it on Piazza della Liberta. It was a welcome sight. He unlocked it by pressing the key fob as we approached and showed Gina into the back seat. I looked back, fearing a pursuit that didn’t come.

  I took the front passenger seat as Ferrara turned on the ignition and gunned the engine. “You’re OK to drive?”

  He nodded. “Let’s leave.”

  The drive out of the old town was as slow as the journey in as the Giulietta negotiated the twisting streets and made the required stops to allow oncoming traffic to pass. All the time we feared that around the next bend a police car would be waiting, blocking our escape. But there was none. The Ostuni police were still to react.

  Back on the coastal road to Fasano, Ferrara pushed up the speed. We’d escaped Ostuni.

  None of us noticed the black BMW following us every kilometer of the way.

  Chapter 53

  The turbo-charged Giulietta was a good machine, the kind Heller would have chosen for himself but they’d given him the BMW. Following Blake and the two others he’d escaped with would be a challenge.

  Heller phoned the Lando contact in the Florence Questura as he chased the Giulietta onto the approach road to the Autostrada A14, heading north.

  “Ranzini. I need you to assist. I am tracking a vehicle. Let me know who I am following.”

  “You did not ask for this before, Signor?”

  Heller disliked the way he called him Signor. “They were not about to get away, before, Signor.”

  He gave Ranzini the number on the Giulietta license plate and waited.

  The reply came back before he’d traveled a mile further. A professor, no less. From Padova University. One by the name of Niccolo Ferrara, Professor of Comparative Religion.

  Heller’s flesh crawled. He hated the academics who pretended to study and teach religion when none knew anything of the real belief, the real religion that men like him and his followers breathed and made into reality each day. This Ferrara was one of them. Another to mark down as one of the enemy.

  The Giulietta was pulling away from him. Not only did Ferrara have no respect for the speed limit, the Alfa Romeo had faster acceleration than the BMW and a faster top speed. Heller did not like a contest as uneven as this.

  He returned to his call with Ranzini. “Give me continuous updates of the location of the Ferrara vehicle. If I lose them, I need to know where they are.”

  The reply came back that this was possible so long as Ranzini could remain unsuspected at the Questura monitoring terminal.

  Chapter 54

  She didn’t see them coming. Debbie Miller had noticed the three Mexican men in brand new suits that looked like they’d just been bought to get them into the hotel but had thought little of it. It was now too late. They followed her into the elevator as she made her way back to her room and surrounded her.

  The biggest of them smiled at her with a mouth full of diamonds and gold. “Senora. You will come with us. You will not shout or try anything to attract attention.” He showed her the gun concealed beneath his jacket. The weapon aimed at her heart. “Many have died in this town, Senora. You do not want to be the next.”

  When the elevator reached the floor Debbie Miller had selected, Ramirez closed the doors again and pressed the button for the lobby. “You will walk out of the hotel with us. You will act like we are together. You understand?”

  Debbie protested. “You know I’m a Federal agent. Harm me and we will hunt you down.”

  Ramirez pushed the muzzle of the gun tighter against her chest. “You are not the one to make threats at this moment, Senora.”

  They walked her out of the hotel to a waiting SUV. Ramirez sat beside her in the back with the gun pressed to her heart while his two accomplices took the front seats. Ramirez flashed the teeth again. “There is someone who would like to speak to you.”

  They drove beyond the city limits and through the desert until they came to a farm complex that looked like it hadn’t produced a crop in years.

  Debbie Miller was worried. They hadn’t covered their faces. She hadn’t been hooded to prevent her from knowing where they’d taken her. This all pointed to the fact that they were not planning on giving her back.

  * * *

  An hour earlier, Dillon Ashley had observed Agent Miller leaving her hotel with three suited Mexicans. She’d looked comfortable with them, as if they were into something together.

  Ashley followed the SUV at a safe distance as it left town.

  Chapter 55

  Ferrara became aware that the BMW was following before I pointed it out to him. “James, it has been with us for some time.”

  I looked behind. Gina was curled up on the back seat. Through the rear window, I could see the BMW nearing as Ferrara slowed behind a truck that would not pull over.

  I’d only seen him close enough to recognize twice before, both times in East Texas, yet it was a face I couldn’t forget, even though he’d sought to change his appearance. The hair was darker, shorter, but there was no doubt it was Wolfgang Heller at the wheel of the BMW.

  I shouted to Ferrara, “It’s Heller. It was him at Ostuni, starting the blaze, shooting Schreiber.”

  Ferrara stared into the rear driver mirror. “Who is Heller?”

  “All you need to know right now is that if he gets close enough to us he’ll kill us.”

  Ferrara gunned the Giulietta to 180 km/hr, and it began to pull away from the BMW. “We won’t stay ahead for long. The BMW’s cruising speed is not as great as ours and we can beat it for acceleration but, unless we are lucky, there will be traffic that will slow us down to a speed he can match.”

  The BMW disappeared from sight as we pulled further away.

  Ferrara was thinking fast. “If we stay far enough ahead, we will try to lose him at the next exit, pull late off the highway and leave him to assume we have continued straight on.”

  The green overhead sign told us that the exit to Fasano was approaching in 2 kilometers. Ferrara accelerated further. As the exit approached the BMW was still out of sight behind us. At the last minute, Ferrara switched late across lanes and took the Fasano exit at speed. He circled the next roundabout and pulled up on the lane used to join the Autostrada from Fasano and waited.

  We had a clear view of the traffic on the northward bound A14. If Heller had not observed our leaving the highway, we would see him pass below us, continuing on north.

  We held our breath.

  Heller’s BMW passed beneath us.

  It was twenty miles to the next exit. When Heller realized what had happened, we would be well on our way.

  We had lost him.

  Ferrara circled back on the slip road and we began to make our way into Fasano.

  I was feeling better. “That worked, Nico. What do you plan next? Is there a route north not using the Autostrada?”

  He nodded. “Yes, we can use the old roads between the towns that were used before the Autostrada was built. It will take longer, but it will be safer.”

  I told Ferrara what I knew about Wolfgang Heller, that he was the Lando henchman who had tried to kill me in East Texas.

  We journeyed through the center of Fasano and on towards Locorotondo, a twenty mile trip.

  The BMW was waiting for us on the outskirts of town.

  Ferrara made a sudden U-turn, risking our lives and those in the vehicles oncoming in the opposite lane.

  He pushed the Giulietta to maximum speed as we headed back towards Fasano, swapping lanes, weaving between slower vehicles.

  Heller followed, gaining on us as we were slowed by delivery trucks ahead.

  Ferrara was shouting, “He knows where we are. How did he find us again? He must have some means of tracking us.”

 
I was thinking. If a tracker was fitted to the Giulietta, it would explain how Heller had traced us to Ostuni. “Something fitted to the car?”

  He shook his head. “That’s not possible. I had the Giulietta checked before I picked it up. Something else?”

  The truth was dawning. I could feel the phone in my pocket growing in size, taking on the aura of an alien object. The phone Manieri had given me to use to report back to him. The phone he was using to monitor my whereabouts.

  I took the phone out, showed it to Ferrara. “The Florence police gave me this.”

  Ferrara took his eyes off the road for a long moment and gave me a withering stare. “James. Tell me about the phone.”

  As soon as I began his driving became more erratic as he realized what I was saying, causing him to remove first his left and then his right hand from the steering wheel to gesticulate. “And you did not think to tell me you are wanted by the police?”

  I was trying to come to terms with my role in what had happened. If I hadn’t traveled south with Ferrara and hadn’t been this foolish in not realizing the phone Manieri had given me could be used as a tracker, there would have been no fire in the apartment in Ostuni. Gina would still have a safe hiding place. Arndt Schreiber would still be alive. “I had it switched off. I don’t see how it could be used to track us. I only turned it on when I needed to call in.”

  Ferrara sighed. “A pity then, James, you did not know that such a phone can be altered to give off a signal, even if as far as you know it is not turned on. It just needs a second, hidden power source; one you would not suspect was there. The Italian police do it all the time.”

  “We can’t be sure the phone is the way Heller has been able to follow us.”

  He was clear in what he wanted me to do. “James, there is one way of knowing. Rid yourself of it. If Heller is no longer able to trace us, we will know it was the phone.”

  I had a better idea. I called Manieri.

  He picked up without much delay. “Signor Blake, you are late reporting in.”