Which meant the Nazis wanted them alive…
The minivan swung past the Touareg, tyres shrilling as it bounded back on to the asphalt. Still shielding himself from the licks of fire coming through the broken windshield, Deyab hauled the Toyota back into line with the highway—
The side windows burst apart.
Rasche fired a long burst from his MPX-K, raking bullets along the Toyota’s flank at head height. Deyab screamed as a grazing round ripped across his temple, instinctively bringing both hands up to the wound.
The van veered towards the concrete divider. ‘Deyab!’ Nina shrieked. He realised the danger and grabbed the wheel again—
Too late.
The Toyota hit the unyielding slab at an angle and was flipped into a roll. Engine screaming, it crashed down on the divider, flank grinding along it before toppling back on to the road — upside down. The remaining windows shattered. The minivan screeched along the tarmac before, top-heavy, it rolled again and landed on its side.
The seat belts had saved its occupants from serious injury, but now the same restraints trapped them inside the overturned vehicle. Nina struggled to find the release, but Macy was slumped on top of her. ‘Macy, wake up!’ she cried.
The younger woman moved weakly, but had been left stunned by the crash. Nina reached around her, grabbing her friend’s seat belt and following it to its buckle. She stabbed at the button, and with a yelp Macy dropped from her seat, tumbling over the redhead to end up in a heap. Nina found her own button and thumped down beside her.
‘Come on, get up!’ she said, wriggling clumsily around in the confined space. ‘We’ve gotta go!’ Banna and Habib were still belted into the rear seats. The young archaeologist had a deep cut on the side of his face. ‘Banna! Ubayy, can you hear me?’
Banna’s face screwed up in pain. ‘Yes, yes,’ he managed to say.
‘Hold on, I’ll get you loose.’ She reached out—
‘Nina!’ Macy cried in alarm. Nina turned — and through the now vertical slot of the windshield saw men encircling the overturned Toyota. All were armed.
‘Shit!’ Nina gasped, moving with a new, fear-driven urgency. She and Macy unfastened Banna’s seat belt, pulling him upright before releasing Habib. ‘They’re surrounding us. I don’t know what—’
‘Dr Wilde!’ called a voice from outside. Rasche. ‘Do not try to escape.’
A deeper voice told Nina that Walther was also amongst their attackers, the hulking Nazi issuing orders. A young man peered in through the van’s rear window, giving its occupants a cursory glance before spotting the case. He dragged it into the open.
Rasche appeared at the front window, narrowing his eyes as he saw Deyab still buckled into the driver’s seat. The bodyguard groped for his gun—
Lips curling into a cruel smile, Rasche shot him in the head. Blood and brain matter splattered across the seat, and the Egyptian’s body went limp, twitching. Macy screamed.
Someone climbed on to the minivan. Dazzling sunlight flooded in as the door above the two women was pulled open. ‘Get them,’ Rasche said, gesturing with his gun.
Hands reached down, roughly pulling Nina out. ‘You didn’t have to kill him!’ she shouted at the Nazi leader. Rasche merely shrugged. Macy was lifted into the open, then Banna and finally Habib. The four stood in a line beside the wreck, fearfully regarding the hard, impassive faces staring back at them.
The young man who had retrieved the case called to Rasche and held up the bronze relic. He frowned at the prisoners. ‘Where is the statue?’
‘It was destroyed,’ Nina replied. The Nazi’s expression darkened further. ‘But we found that hidden inside it.’
Walther joined him and spoke in German. Rasche was still not pleased, but nodded. ‘Then it is fortunate that our orders were already to take you alive,’ he told Nina. ‘We have use for archaeologists. Especially one with a reputation for finding the unfindable.’
‘What use?’ she demanded.
He ignored her, watching the other man return the relic to the case before moving to Habib. ‘Thank you for all the information you gave us, Youssef. You have been most useful.’
Habib’s expression became that of a rabbit trapped in headlights. ‘You — you promised you would keep my helping you a secret!’
‘You gave them the tomb plans?’ cried Nina. The enraged Banna tried to lunge at him, but one of the Nazis shoved him back against the minivan.
‘I needed the money!’ Habib gabbled. ‘I did not know anyone would be hurt, I swear to Allah!’ He turned to Rasche, frantic. ‘Why did you tell them? They will tell the police — I will go to prison!’
‘We are going to take them with us, so they will not talk to anyone,’ Rasche replied. ‘Come over here. I have the rest of your payment.’
He backed to the roadside. Habib followed, offering a stammering apology over his shoulder to Banna. It was not well received. Shamefaced, the government official turned back to Rasche—
The German’s gun was pointed at his heart.
Habib barely had time to register the betrayal before Rasche pulled the trigger. He staggered, held upright by sheer disbelief, before collapsing on to the tarmac. Macy screamed again and turned away, Banna frozen in horror. Another wave of cold disgust hit Nina.
‘Gierige kleine Ratte,’ muttered Walther. He issued an order, and the case was taken to the Touareg. ‘Move,’ he told the prisoners.
‘Where are you taking us?’ Nina demanded as she, Macy and Banna were hustled to the Nazis’ van.
Rasche’s malevolent smile returned. ‘To the home of the New Reich.’
15
‘Well, this is ironic,’ said Eddie. ‘Me and Nina sat right here not that long ago. If we’d known there was a bad guy just over there, I could have sorted him out before any of this started.’
He and Zane were in the heart of the small town of Amalfi, on Italy’s west coast. On their visit some weeks earlier, Nina had been entranced by the beauty of the medieval port, and even Eddie, not normally given to gushing over matters aesthetic, had agreed that it was ‘really pretty’. Elegant old buildings of pale stone surrounded the busy square, leading the eye to the baroque cathedral towering over it. Beyond the striped marble structure, the ragged cliffs that for centuries had acted as natural fortifications formed a stunning backdrop.
But his interest today was not scenery. The two men were in one of the piazza’s pavement cafés, keeping a sidelong watch on another establishment: more specifically, a patron. Seated in the shade was a lean, pale-skinned man in his fifties, his features further protected from the sun — and observers — by a broad-brimmed white hat and a pair of rectangular sunglasses. Despite the rising heat, he wore a full three-piece suit of a white cloth so clean and fine that it looked almost like porcelain.
Frederic Leitz.
Eddie had not seen the Mossad file, but the Luxembourger matched the description Zane had given him on their journey from Egypt. In his youth, Leitz had been a member of the Luxembourg army before broadening his horizons beyond the tiny state by joining the French Foreign Legion. For the past twenty years, however, he had taken on a civilian role as an information broker and middleman; handling transactions for assorted far-right-wing organisations, if the Mossad were to be believed. He was apparently very good at what he did, since he had never been charged with any crime.
He took his personal security as seriously as his secrecy. Zane had told Eddie that their subject had a morning routine of enjoying a coffee and a glass of local orange and lemon juice at the café before returning to his villa. However, he was not doing so alone. He had arrived shadowed by two younger men, both with slight bulges under their clothing that to a trained eye were identifiable as handguns. One of the pair was at another table from where he could observe his patron and the surrounding square, while the other had stationed himself at the nearby fountain, keeping watch from behind its statue of St Andrew.