The Bussento exited the grotto like the world’s most brutal water slide. Zara was tossed this way and that as it churned between huge boulders. Her right leg caught in the cleft between two rocks and was twisted so sharply by her own momentum that her tibia snapped instantly and she felt splinters of bone rip through her skin. She opened her mouth to scream only for water to gush on in. She was certain she was about to drown when suddenly she was thrown backwards down a sharp drop into a narrow, deep lake, where the river seemed to take a breather after its violent emergence from the mountain.
She retched water from her lungs, composed herself a little. Her recent companion Yani was lying face down and motionless in shallows by the bank. She hardened her heart and swam right by him in a lopsided slow crawl, reaching the place where the river picked up again, sweeping her along with it, allowing her to concentrate on keeping her broken leg clear of its stony bed. Part of the right-hand bank ahead had collapsed into the river, creating a small inlet of still water covered by reeds and grasses and a skim of algae. She dragged herself over to it, turned onto her back. The pain from her leg was unbelievable. Only terror stopped her from crying out.
She glimpsed movement on the river. She held her breath. But it was only one of the waterproof bags floating by. The riverbank here was a mix of writhing pale roots and loamy soil. She dug her fingers into it to smear across her face for camouflage. She sank as low in the water as she could, stretched her legs out in front of her, tipped back her head to leave only her mouth, nose and eyes exposed. A rustling noise on the far bank. She caught and held her breath. Through the thin veil of reeds, she saw Cesco fighting his way through thorns then holding them aside for Carmen, limping badly and with blood dripping down her flank. She felt relief that they’d made it out this far, and longed to cry out to them, that they might share this ordeal together; but she knew too that she would only slow them down and give those bastard gunmen an easy quarry, so somehow she bit her tongue.
And then they were gone.
Silence fell. Half a minute passed. Cold and shock made her shiver, despite her neoprene. Her shivers turned to shudders. More rustling. Men’s voices. Pain hammered at her leg like a miner at a coalface. She bit her hand to stop herself crying out. She had a sudden yearning for her parents, to see them once more before she died. What a fool she’d been, to let the estrangement persist. What a proud and stupid fool. She vowed to herself that it would be the first thing she’d put right if by some miracle she got out of this and made it home again. Then she shut her eyes and, for the first time in over a decade, she began to pray.
Tomas led Guido and four others out of the grotto into the grey morning murk. The river roared below them and to their left. He fought through trees and undergrowth then scrambled down a steep embankment to the edge of a lake. One of the Israelis was lying face down by the bank. He kicked him onto his back. A bullet hole in his neoprene suit had snagged on the rocks, tearing a zippered pouch wide open, allowing gemstones of astonishing size and colour to spill into the shallow, reddened water around him. At once, Massimo and the others lunged for them like piglets for a tit, stirring up sediment to obscure what they were after.
‘Leave it,’ yelled Tomas. But it was useless. Greed had them in its grip. He looked around, spied smears of blood on rocks on the far bank. He grabbed Guido by his arm as he scrabbled for gems with the others. ‘Forget the damned stones,’ he said. ‘We need Rossi and the girl.’
Guido held up a ruby with childish awe. ‘But look at the size of it!’
‘Forget it,’ snapped Tomas. ‘If we get Rossi and the girl, it’s all ours. The whole tomb. We’ll be the richest men in Italy.’
Guido blinked and came back to his senses. ‘Where are they?’ he asked, lumbering to his feet.
Tomas pointed across the lake. They waded out into the water, swam with their guns above their heads. They climbed out the far bank, brushed themselves down. A thin animal track beside the river was marked by telltale wet footprints and spatters of blood.
‘Ready, oh my brother?’ asked Tomas.
Guido nodded. ‘Let’s do it,’ he said.
Baldassare was not a man to send others into danger while he himself held back. Yet he, Giuseppe and Zeno were older and less capable than the others here, and liable only to get in the way.
Besides, they had a different contribution to make.
It was Baldassare himself who took the wheel, leading the way down the hairpin road towards the cottage. He drove slowly and with his headlights on full beam, both to dazzle the two ’Ndrangheta men while making it as easy as possible for the cars behind to follow, even with their own engines and headlights off. He passed by the cottage and carried on along the road while they peeled off one by one, freewheeling down the drive to the cottage forecourt. They pulled up in a row and piled yelling from their cars, overwhelming the two men without a shot being fired, then going through the cottage room by room to make sure it was clear.
It was all over before Baldassare joined them. The two thugs were already cuffed and sitting on hard chairs in separate rooms. But it took him only a single look into their eyes to reveal that the first shock of their capture had already passed, to be replaced by a familiar surly defiance. Give him a day or two and he might break them. But he didn’t have a day or two. He had no time at all.
‘Go outside,’ murmured Aldo. ‘I’ll get them talking.’
Baldassare shook his head. He loathed these men more than words could say, and the lives of Cesco and Carmen were very much at stake. Yet he’d dedicated his life to the rule of law. And it wasn’t in him to change that now, not even for this. But where did that leave him? What options did he have? He was still dithering when the kitchen door banged open and Sandro rushed in, his two-way radio crackling in his hand. ‘Your woman,’ he said. ‘Your American woman.’
‘What about her?’ asked Baldassare.
‘They’ve got a signal from her phone at last,’ he said. ‘And it seems she’s on the move.’