His heart pounded as he brought the Ducati to a standstill.
In a coastal hamlet that restricted the use of vehicles to local residents and government cars, it seemed impossible to believe that three cars had amounted to enough traffic to come to a complete stop.
Up ahead was a single workman, holding a stop sign. With bureaucratic authority the man’s face was plastered with obstinacy, as though he alone had the power to stop all traffic, despite there being no obvious work being done on a perfectly good piece of road. The road worker’s eyes seemed to scan the occupants of each car, meeting the various drivers with a dogged challenge, searching and daring them to defy his authority.
The place could have been getting its annual resurfacing, but it seemed unlikely. For one thing, the road surface seemed good, with the blacktop smooth and absent of any potholes. Secondly, even if there was roadwork going on — as the man with the stop sign suggested — the question remained, where were the workers?
At the front of the queue was a police officer on a motorcycle.
Sam swallowed hard and tried to shrink his shoulders back behind the Ducati’s large fuel tank, while reminding himself that the police were looking for a man with a metallic suitcase, not someone riding an obsidian colored motorcycle. Besides, with Catarina’s matching obsidian helmet, he doubted very much that anyone would be looking at him.
The second vehicle in the line was a Mercedes-Benz G-Class. The “G” was short for Geländewagen, which meant "cross country vehicle." The light truck looked like a jarring contradiction of purposes — on one hand it looked like a go-anywhere truck built to withstand the harshness of the most rugged terrains, while on the other, it was the ultimate statement of class and luxury.
This one was a G63 AMG, a special edition limited to 2002 and the only model with a 6.3 liter V12 engine.
The windows were tinted, preventing Sam from seeing the occupants inside, but already, his gut told him if there was to be an ambush, it would most likely come from whoever was inside the G63. The light truck was priced well above a quarter of a million dollars, in any currency. People with that kind of money bought supercars — hell, in Italy, someone with that sort of money to burn, would surely buy a Ferrari, Lamborghini, or Pagani — unless they wanted to make a different sort of statement? Something like, we’re a hell of a lot tougher than you.
And who wants to achieve that impression?
Drug dealers, heads of organized crime, and…
Members of the Russian mafia.
Sam revved the Ducati’s throttle, his eyes scanning for a way around the two cars if he had to make a move. It all depended on where the ambush came from. The bike was fast, but hardly fast enough to outrun a bullet if he was attacked.
If it came from whoever was in the Mercedes in front of him, he would have only a split second to make a decision. Life or death would rest on his ability to accelerate away as soon as one of those doors opened.
In his mirrors, a fourth vehicle pulled up behind him.
It was an old Italian car. Sam recognized it as a Lancia Montecarlo. The convertible version, with the top down. This one had been recently painted Ascot Green, making it appear somewhat modern, despite Sam placing the vehicle’s age as somewhere around the 1970s.
In the back of his mind, something seemed familiar about the car.
He’d seen it back in Vernazza.
But it wasn’t just that. He remembered, somewhere in the deep recess of his subconscious at the time, thinking that there was something about it. It was a distant memory. More like something from his youth. Maybe his own father had owned one? Although, from what he’d read about his father, the car wasn’t quite up to his taste in exotic and expensive cars.
If not his father, then who?
Tom Bower’s father.
That was it! The first memory to return from his past. It was a childhood memory. His friend’s father had owned one. It would have been old, even then, and it wasn’t green, it was red… but all the same, the car had been Tom’s father’s!
Sam felt elated to have made such a recollection. It confirmed Catarina’s theory that parts of his memory would come back, albeit slowly, and more likely older memories than recent experiences.
The thought about Tom jolted another understanding.
His eyes fixed on the driver and passenger of the Montecarlo.
Back in Vernazza, there had been an old Italian man struggling to start the car, but the driver in it now looked young. The Lancia Montecarlo was unique, too recognizable to be mistaken for another car, and much too unlikely that there were simply two of them.
No, the old Italian man had gotten out, and two new people had gotten in since Sam had walked past the car back in Vernazza.
Sam’s eyes narrowed as he glanced at the two occupants in his mirrors.
One male and one female. The man was a good head taller than the woman, with giant shoulders, and a carefree grin on his face. The woman had short, brown hair, and an impish face. He recognized the girl from the pictures of the crew on board the Tahila that he’d seen on the internet, although he couldn’t put a name to her.
If one of his crew was in the passenger seat, who was the driver?
His eyes locked with the driver’s.
The man showed recognition, giving him a firm, almost friendly nod.
Sam had seen that look before.
He knew where he’d seen that face before, too. He exhaled a deep sigh of relief.
It was Tom Bower.
An instant later, two doors from the Mercedes G63 opened — and the ambush began.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Sam dropped the clutch.
It was like releasing the reins of a thoroughbred. The Ducati Diavel shot forward. The driver of the Mercedes was the first to respond. In a split second, two things happened simultaneously. The driver of the Mercedes drew his handgun — leveling its barrel at Sam — and the Ducati’s front wheel lifted high off the ground.
The sound of multiple shots rang in Sam’s ears.
Sparks flew off the underside of the motorcycle, turning the metallic, obsidian paint, into a series of fiery shards. An instant later, the Ducati’s front wheel slammed into the driver’s open side door, slamming it shut and crushing the driver in the metal doorframe with a sickening crunch.
The front wheel dropped to the ground.
Sam balanced the bike, working to keep it from flipping. He straightened it, opened the throttle all the way up, and shot through the gap between the roadworker and the two police bikes. The roadworker dropped his stop sign, trading it for a pistol, which he immediately aimed at Sam.
The fake roadworker never got a chance to take a shot.
Instead, his body was sprayed with bullets — either intentionally shot by Tom or the woman with him, the thugs in the Mercedes, or even accidentally by the police. He couldn’t tell. In fact, there was little he could discern about who was attacking him or who was defending him — if anyone.
One thing was certain. Sam wasn’t going to wait around to find out who wanted him dead or alive. He accelerated hard into the first corner, glad to be out of a direct line of sight of anyone who was trying to shoot him.
Behind him, he heard the sirens of police motorcycles in pursuit.
The road forked in two directions — north and south.
Sam turned right, heading south toward La Spezia on Strada Provinciale 51. If Strada Provinciale 61 was dangerous, Strada Provinciale 51 was outright lethal on a motorcycle. The narrow road snaked backward and forward through sharp doglegs and hairpin turns as it negotiated the series of terraced olive groves and vineyards along Cinque Terra.