Lim arrowed the 7-Series BMW down a cosy side street at speeds that shouldn’t have been possible. The chasing BMWs stuck to her like gum on a school desk, a red Alfa hatchback wedged between the two. Chiang pleaded for his life in the passenger seat, his face a white matte from the dizzying ride. He begged for her to slow down. She did as requested, pulling sharply on the handbrake.
The BMW slid sideways into the next street, kissed the wall and swerved around a Vespa flying the other way. The Vespa rider crashed into a storefront as the chasing pack appeared in her rear-view mirror, the drivers skilful and obviously highly trained.
Lim tore down street after street, looking for a way out, trying to recall a memorised map of Rome city centre. All the while she was fighting the urge to put a bullet through the whimpering Chiang’s skull. Somehow, she had to find her way out of the tourist trap.
‘Who are you?’ Chiang whimpered. ‘What do you want? I can make you rich. Just let me go.’
‘You know who I am,’ Lim said, lifting her sunglasses.
As she shot him a glare, Chiang’s eyes grew like inflating balloons. ‘You.’
‘Yes, me,’ Lim replied, swerving back onto one of the main streets leading out of the ancient city.
‘But you’re in prison,’ Chiang said. ‘How on earth—?’
Lim dropped the sunglasses over her eyes. She ignored the question and swerved round a lumbering bus instead. As the chasing cars fanned out and the roads split into a multiple-lane highway, Lim slalomed between trucks and cars, trying to throw off her pursuers. They stuck with her – the other BMWs to her left and right, the red hatchback latching onto her tail.
Behind the wheel of the Alfa, she saw Wells, a look of grim determination on his face. Lim veered left around a box truck and back inside, cutting up a blue Fiat with an irate driver. Moving through steady, predictable traffic was bad enough during a high-speed pursuit, but in Rome, you could double it. And then out came the semi-automatic rifles, a burst of fire and the passenger window exploding.
Chiang yelped like a chihuahua and cowered low in his seat. The chasing cars converged, barged and jostled Lim’s car. A man leaned out of the car to the right, about to fire. Lim pulled left and hit the brakes. She slowed alongside a truck, hiding from sight. Applying the brakes once more, Lim slid out behind the chasing BMWs.
Only here came Wells. He swung his red Alfa into her from the right. She barged back with interest. They split and weaved as the road snaked to the right.
‘What happened to you…’ Chiang snivelled, as if her capture had been a matter of chance. ‘It wasn’t personal.’
‘You sold me out for a promotion,’ Lim said. ‘How is that not personal?’
‘I was trying to save you,’ Chiang insisted.
‘You were saving your own skin,’ she replied in disbelief at the man’s capacity for lies.
Lim pulled hard on the wheel to the right, knocking Wells out of the picture. They flew through a red light, the road curving left, beyond the Colosseum. Steering through a cross-stream of traffic, Lim thought she was clear, but a rattle of gunfire killed that idea. One of the chasers gained ground to her left. The car took another round of bullets in the side, the driver-side mirror destroyed. Chiang screamed and curled up in a ball.
‘Don’t be such a baby,’ Lim said, as she changed gears and got ahead of the car.
It slid in behind, but the other BMW had got ahead of her. From in front and behind, they boxed her in, with Wells lurching into view on the right. As all three cars tried to slow her down and force her off the road, a shooter leaned out of the passenger window of the lead BMW. He prepped his assault rifle. Chiang cowered anew. Lim waited for the last fraction of a second and yanked the wheel to the left. As the man opened fire, she pulled clear of the onslaught and scythed into oncoming traffic.
A fish against the shoal, they were inches from death. Lim kept the car on the road, playing chicken with oncoming cars. Yet it didn’t solve the problem, the chasing cars keeping pace on the other side of the road. One by one, they cut in behind her. Lim cut back onto the correct side of the road. Her pursuers followed. Deciding to try something different, Lim wrapped her fingers round the top of the wheel and spun it all the way to the right. The car slid one-eighty. Lim shifted into reverse mid-spin, her foot to the floor. Gunfire punctured the windscreen, the rear-view mirror blasted to pieces. She put a hand on the back of the passenger seat, looked over a shoulder and steered one-handed around the flow of cars and across a busy intersection.
An articulated truck ploughed straight into one of the BMWs. The other two cars made it through. But Lim had all the gap she needed. She braked to an emergency stop, tyres screeching and car juddering. Lim rammed the gear stick into first and wheel-spun the BMW on a diagonal, drifting clear of the remaining two cars in a cloud of white tyre smoke.
Joining the flow of traffic heading back the opposite way, Lim handbrake-turned again to her left. She checked behind her. Wells and the remaining BMW were caught going the wrong way in the lunchtime rush. Lim drove at speed, looking left and right. She saw an opening down into the basement garage of an office tower. Lim slowed and steered down the ramp, into the quiet dark seclusion of the garage. She drove to the end of the car park and screeched to a stop at an angle, an inch from hitting the wall.
A hyperventilating Chiang lowered his trembling hands from his bloodshot eyes. Lim removed her sunglasses and regarded the minister with the disdain he deserved.
‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.
Lim checked the clip on her pistol and jammed it back in place. ‘What needs to be done.’