"Dibdin, Michael - Aurelio Zen 02 - Vendetta UC - part 11" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dibdin Michael)

were prepared to walk four or five kilometres to take
advantage of the new railway. This station was Zen's goal.
There was bound to be a telephone, and the station-
master, owing his allegiance -- and more in.portantly his
job -- not to the locals but to the state, was bound to let Zen
use it. All Criminalpol officials were provided with a
codeword, changed monthly, which acted as turn-key
providing the user with powers to dispose of the facilities
of the forces of order from one end of the country to the
other. One brief phone call, and helicopters and jeeps full
of armed police would descend on the area, leaving
Spadola the choice of returning to the prison cell he had so
recently vacated or dying in a hail of machine-gun fire. All
Zen had to do was make sure the police arrived before
Spadola.
He had banked on being able to freewheel the Mercedes
all the way, but as soon as he got close enough to see the
track, he noticed a feature not shown on the map: a low
rise of land intervening between the road and the railway.
It was difficult to estimate exactly how steep it was from
the brief glances he was able to spare as he approached the
last of the hairpin bends. For a moment he was tempted tc~
let the car gather speed on the final straight stretch, gam-
bling that the accumulated momentum would be enough
to carry it over the ridge. But the risk was too great. If hi
didn't make it, he would be forced to abandon the
Mercedes at the bottom of the slope, in full view of the
road, which would be tantamount to leaving a sign
explaining his intentions. When Spadola arrived, he
would simply drive along the track, easily overtaking Zen
before he could reach the station on foot.
By now he was seconds away from the junction. The
onIy alternative was to turn on to the main road, which ran
gent]y downhill to the right. Trying to conserve speed, he
took the hirn so fast that the tyres lost their grip on a
triangular patch of gravel in the centre of the junction and
the Mercedes started to drift sideways towards the ditch
on the other side. At the last moment the steering abruptls
came back, almost wrenching the wheel from Zen's hands.
He steered back to the right-hand side, thankful that therc
was so little traffic on these Sardinian roads. As the car
started to gather speed again, he glanced at the road
winding its way up tn the village. Several hundred metres
above, he spotted a small patch of bright yellow approach -
ing the second hairpin. Then a fold of land rose between
like a passing wave and he Iost sight of it.
The road stretched invitingly away in a gentle down-
ward slope. Zen felt his anxieties being lulled by the car's
smooth, even motion, but he knew that this sense of
security was an illusion. Once on the main road, Spadola's