Someone screamed.
I had a key in my hand.
In very fast action a lot of the work is done on the sub-conscious level, with a certain amount of reasoning responsible for decision-making: Fogel had knocked into a group of people and a woman among them had screamed as he dragged at the door of their car; they saw his gun and held back. He was still working fast and very efficiently but any physical action is slower than thought and the key in my hand was the one they'd given me at Hertz. I knew where the dark blue Fiat 1100 was: they'd shown me.
The Alfa-Romeo had drawn in to the kerb half a minute ago and the people had got out and were standing in a group on the pavement when Fogel had knocked into them and pulled the door open. Part of his thinking must have been that he would find the ignition key in place, because this was a no-waiting area and the driver would have to stay near the car and wouldn't remove the key. Fogel had been very good in Budapest, stalking me with his telescopic rifle and placing three shots in two days, all of the beautifully worked out and unsuccessful only because I'd operated with cat's nerves and used every defensive trick in the business to stay alive. Now on the defensive himself he was still very good, working steadily and fast and relying to a certain extent on surprise manoeuvres.
A heavy thudding began as the party of carabinieri came through the glass doors and I waited for the first shot and then got onto my feet and made for the Fiat on the other side of the road. There was only a medium volley because they hadn't seen him get into the Alfa-Romeo but it gave me cover and I reached the Fiat with all the momentum necessary: I needed the key for the ignition but not for the door because that way would take too much time. My heel struck the glass edge on and the stuff was still falling away as I reached inside and opened the door and got in and used the key and gunned up.
Fogel was turning across my bows and I didn't think he had any particular route in his mind: if he drove straight off alongside the pavement he would run through a curtain of bullets because the carabinieri were strung out and already taking deliberate aim instead of firing wild and his only chance was to make a fast U-turn and try for distance. He was doing that and at the same time I was forced to make a decision because the situation was now mobile and I didn't stand a chance of tagging him without his knowing. The thing was beginning to look shut-ended because my orders were to identify without being recognised and I couldn't do that without tagging him and I couldn't tag him without being seen. Unless I could run him to ground and put the whole thing into a long-term surveillance phase I couldn't hope to get close enough to identify.
During a mission a lot of your thinking is done for you by Control and the moves are sketched out for you through Signals, but sometimes the executive has to get into his controller's mind and make his decision accordingly and in this case the controller was Egerton and I didn't think he'd want me to abort the Rome assignment. There was also of course the other consideration: if I wanted him to give me the Kobra mission I'd have to give him a bit of an incentive and the best way of doing that was to tie up this Rome phase the way he wanted it.
So I wouldn't abort.
The Fiat was slithering a little because of wheelspin and I eased off and got the tyres biting and then gunned up again, closing the gap on the Alfa-Romeo and holding it as another volley of shots came from behind us and picked some paint off Fogel's car and smashed the rear window. The siren of the emergency vehicle had started howling and I could see its red flashing light in the mirror. There was some traffic coming the other way because a Pan American Jumbo was due in at 00:55 and the line of cars began slowing when they saw the emergency vehicle coming up behind us. A stray shot came from somewhere but it didn't seem to hit anything.
Fogel was trying for the main exit gate but his brake lights came on and the tyres began smoking because a police car had appeared from the other direction to cut him off: with that siren howling it wouldn't be long before every patrol on the airport zeroed in on the Alfa and at this point I began thinking he wasn't going to make it because they were taking him very seriously: I still didn't know what the two plainclothesmen had been waiting for but they could have been noncombatant surveillance men scouting for the carabinieri, but even if I was wrong on that point the fact remained that the carabinieri had been sent specifically to meet Fogel so they wanted him pretty badly.
A single shot and my windscreen shattered and I hit the snow away with the flat of my left hand: I think it was Fogel himself, holding the gun across his shoulder and letting fly at random to cool of the pursuit.
Two shells left.
The Alfa-Romeo was now in a long curving slide as he took evasive action against the police car and I clouted the right offside wing of the Fiat as I went through the gap between the police car and a traffic island, driving into a blaze of light and out again and seeing the Alfa straightening up ahead of me. The only way he could go now was through the open gates to the tarmac and I followed him and saw the guard drawing his gun as I passed him. He fired three steady shots and two of them went into the Alfa, smashing a rear light and picking some bits of glass off the broken rear window. The car swerved and corrected and swerved again and I hit the brakes and pulled out a bit towards the airport building to give him room if he was going to turn over.
I couldn't see what was happening but it looked as if the guard's second shot had hit Fogel but hadn't quite knocked him out. He'd got control again but was veering towards the Air France plane that was now being checked and refuelled in the parking bay. This could either be typical thinking on his part or pure chance and I couldn't make out which: if he kept on his present course he could drive under the tail of the aircraft with a few inches to spare and give himself some excellent visual and tactical cover and force anyone behind him to hold their fire.
I swung the wheel and brought the Fiat into a wide curve that would take me past the tail of of the aircraft and keep the Alfa in sight. The sirens were now a permanent background and I could see some lights flashing somewhere beyond the Air France plane and to the right. Fogel was still on course but there was something wrong with him because the Alfa swerved again and tried to correct and couldn't make it: on this course he wouldn't clear the tail of the plane with anything like the room he needed. Some of the maintenance crew had stopped work and I thought I saw one of them running for cover behind the fuel tanker.
Headlights blinded me for a moment and I hit the mirror. Either the police car or the emergency vehicle had been gaining on us and I pulled over slightly to the left again to give them a clear run if they wanted to go past: the Fiat was flat out and smelling hot and I wasn't certain I could keep up with the Alfa-Romeo if Fogel decided to head for the open runways; but this thought was academic because he swerved again and couldn't correct this time and hit the fuel tanker head-on and I was already putting the Fiat into a controlled slide when the whole thing went up and I was driving into a wall of flame.
Chapter Six: TARGET
She was practising arpeggios.
The heavy lace curtains were half drawn and the light in die room was muted, softening the reflections in the lid of the piano.
I watched her hands. She was only a child, and having trouble with her right thumb, passing it under with a little jerk and using her arm to support the movement. Several times she gave up and sat perfectly still, gazing in front of her with her pale ivory face composed and her eyes quiet. A painter would have run for his brushes, though I could believe chat if I hadn't been in the room she would have sworn aloud each tune she stopped playing.