Donna put the Alfa into a violent sideways skid down the track to try and pull up. Luckily the car didn’t turn over, but the crazy slide was only stopped when they crashed heavily into the parapet. The car tipped precariously onto one side and hung there for a long five seconds. Then it smashed down on to its wheels again with a tinkle of broken glass and a crunch of torn metal. It came to rest with the bonnet sticking up at an awkward angle. Everyone let out a silent sigh of relief.
Ben was the first to recover sufficiently to leap out. He saw immediately that the front left wheel had been smashed completely off and an ominous cloud of steam was issuing from under the bonnet. They had lost their means of escape to Amalfi.
Donna joined him in surveying the wreckage. She sighed. “Gee, that’s torn it. I don’t know what the rental company will say.”
“Somehow I don’t think your little car’s going to do many more miles.”
They turned back to where Francesca was bending over the old man. As they watched he sat up in his corner, apparently all right. But Ben guessed it would be some time before he chose to take another trip along the Amalfi Drive by car.
The thought was chased from his mind by the snarl of an exhaust above their heads as the Ferrari swung round the corner and chased off to its rendezvous with the helicopter. They had temporarily succeeded in throwing their pursuers off their trail. But Ben didn’t doubt the Vitelli would soon be back.
“Well,” he said, “we can’t escape by car now. What do you suggest?”
“We stay and face ‘em.” Donna’s fighting comment made them all look at her.
“We can go down to the house,” suggested Francesca.
“I don’t think your friends will be very pleased if we turn up out of the blue with a pack of the Vitelli at our heels.”
“Oh – I do not think they will be here now. Usually they only come for the holidays and at weekends in the summer to get away from the heat and the bad air of Naples. But I know where they keep the keys. Maybe we could hide in the villa.”
Ben shook his head. “The Vitelli would soon find us. We can’t hide the car and that’ll give us away. I think we might be better going back to the village. There might be somebody who can give us a lift to Amalfi in their car.”
“The village is fifteen minutes walk,” said Francesca. “I know. I have walked into it. I was here on holiday two years ago.”
“I didn’t see anybody in the village.” Donna tossed her head. “I vote we stay and defend ourselves. I’ve got a gun.”
“Another one? Are you running a private army?”
She laughed as she went back to the car, opened the glove compartment and took out an automatic pistol.
“That won’t keep them off for long,” said Ben. “But it might give the police time to get here. We’d better ring them straight away.”
“There’s no signal on my mobile.” Donna looked at him. “What about yours?”
Ben looked shame-faced. “I had it taken away at the Villa Rafallo.”
“Is there a phone in the house?”
Francesca shook her head. “There is no telephone. It is just a holiday home.”
“Well,” said Donna. “It looks like this here weapon is the only friend we’ve got.” She gestured towards the villa. “Aw, come on. Let’s see what we can find down there.”
They helped Papa Cimbrone out of the car and down the steep winding steps between the bushes of myrtle and oleander. It was a long way but he coped gamely with the help of a hand under each elbow from Ben and Francesca. Donna went ahead, carrying the gun in her handbag and shivering in her inadequate clothes. The wild wind tugged and buffeted at the hillside, sometimes carrying a spattering of rain in its bosom.
They reached the shelter of the front porch to the villa. Ben noticed the place was little more than a small bungalow occupying a concrete terrace cut out of the precipitous slope. With only the slightest hesitation, Francesca reached up to a ledge on one side of the door and removed a small bunch of keys. She looked at them carefully.
“I think this one is the boat and the little one is the padlock to the boathouse. That means this will be the one to the front door.” She started trying to fit it into the lock.
“Wait a minute – what sort of boat have they got?”
Francesca’s eyes glowed. “Oh, it is a lovely boat. It is a speed boat.”
“Is it big enough to get us to Naples?”
“Gee, I get it,” said Donna.
“It is quite big.” Francesca shrugged. “But I do not know if it will go all the way to Naples.”
“I reckon that’s a better idea than trying to defend ourselves in this villa,” said Ben. “Let’s go and look at it.”
Donna and Ben set off again down the path, leaving Francesca behind to help her Papa. The steps became even steeper as they started to drop into the small gully. The roof of the boathouse came into view. It covered a deep, narrow inlet cut into the rock. The steps went down the side of the building and onto a small concrete landing stage. The door at the front was an up-and-over grating which was padlocked to a shackle let into the concrete. Ben undid the padlock without too much difficulty. It had obviously been used recently.
He led the way into the boathouse. The boat was tethered to the catwalk with its nose pointing out to sea. He went down to check it out. It was a sporty motor cruiser with a half-cabin and a spray-shield to shelter the helmsman in the cockpit. He was pleased to note it had in-board engines. The controls were to the left of the cabin door. They looked simple enough – a starter button, twin throttle levers and a small steering wheel. He only hoped there was enough fuel in the tank to get them to Naples. He couldn’t find a fuel gauge on the control panel.
While he was doing this Donna had climbed some steps from the catwalk to a storage platform at the back of the boathouse. “Hey,” she called, “there’s a little window up here – only about a foot square. There’s great view of the steps. I reckon I could hold off a posse for a month from this position.”
“I’m more interested in getting away.”
Ben unlocked the cabin door and peered in to the boat’s interior. He saw there were two long seats with a table between them. Otherwise there was little of interest. He returned to the cockpit and climbed onto the helmsman’s seat. He tried the key in the ignition. The electric starter turned the motor over immediately. After a couple of seconds the first engine fired, followed almost immediately by the other one. He moved the throttle levers forward experimentally and experienced a surge of power as the boat tugged against its mooring ropes. A wash of water splashed over the rocks at the back of the boathouse. He closed the throttles and the engines settled down to purr contentedly.
“This seems a potent vessel.”
He looked ahead to the closed doors of the boathouse. They stopped about a foot above the water. They needed to be opened. Ben got out onto the catwalk and went forward to the front of the building. The doors were secured in position by two steel angles which slotted into brackets on each side. These lifted out quite easily. Then the doors concertinaed to the side of the catwalk. They had got a little stiff with rust in the salty atmosphere but a hefty pull slid them across. Ben returned to the boat.
Francesca and her father had arrived by now and Ben helped her get the old man into the cockpit and then into the cabin.
She followed him back into the cockpit. “You are taking the boat?”
“It’s the only way I can see of escaping. You’ll have to apologise to your friends when you see them next. Let’s hope we can return it to them undamaged.”
Francesca opened her mouth to reply but at that moment there came a shout from Donna and a furious beckoning. In a few seconds Ben was at her side on the storage platform.
“See this, Ben. Looks like they haven’t taken long to tumble our little game.”
Coming down the steps were Guido and the two gangsters.
Ben looked at her. “I don’t think we
’ll have a problem getting away in the boat if we keep our heads down. But we’d better get a move on. If you undo the bow rope I’ll deal with the stern.”
She looked straight at him. “I don’t like boats any more than I do aircraft. I’ll stay here to protect your rear.”
“Don’t be daft, Donna. You know what these characters are like. They won’t give you a free lift home just because you’re a woman.”
“Sorry.” She turned back to the window. “I don’t want to leave my little car. I’ve got sort of attached to it.”
“Donna,” Ben remonstrated. “Those men out there are killers.”
She lifted the automatic and took aim. “Don’t worry about me. I can look after myself. Those guys out there will lose interest in me as soon as you take off.” She reached in to her hip pocket and took out a card. “When you get to Naples, go to this address and ask for Jacob Smith. Tell him who you are and all that’s happened. He’ll know what to do.”
Ben glanced at the card. The address meant nothing to him. “What does this mean, Donna?”
“No time to tell you now. I’ll explain later. Just get moving while you can.”
She smashed the glass in the window with the muzzle of the automatic. The Italians froze, looking for the source of the sound. Ben could see they were coming down the steps, less than thirty feet away. Donna took careful aim. There was a flat report followed by a howl of pain. As if acting in unison, the three men dived off the steps out of sight.
“Flesh wound,” said Donna. “But that’ll slow them down a bit. Now, Ben – you get motoring while you still can.”
“Just as you say, ma’am.” Ben squeezed her shoulder. “Take care and don’t expose yourself.”
She looked up at him and her eyes were soft. “You too, you silly bugger.”
Somebody called in Italian from outside and Ben was galvanized into action. He ran to the bow of the boat and undid the rope, coiling it roughly before he tossed it onto the foredeck. Then he went to the stern and released that one. He looped the tail through the ring on the quayside and handed both ends to Francesca who was waiting in the cockpit.
“Hang on to this and let go of the loose end when I open up the engines. Then coil it up on the seat. OK?”
“All right. Shout when you are ready.” There was excitement in her eyes as she took the rope.
“Both these women seem to be treating this experience like a game,” he thought to himself.
He jumped aboard, went to the wheel and eased the throttles forward. The engine snarled and the boat tugged at the rope.
“Let go!” he shouted and pushed the levers further forward. His over-eagerness was nearly their undoing. Released from its tether, the cruiser roared off down the creek straight towards the rocks on the far side. He flung the wheel over to prevent them hitting the entrance jamb and scraped the other side against the end of the concrete walkway. He corrected that properly this time and they were free, heading down the little inlet. Ben would have liked to wave back to Donna but he didn’t dare take his hands off the wheel or his attention from the rocks on the left hand side.
He heard a plop from behind and a soft echo from somewhere near him. That meant they were shooting.
“Get below!” he yelled at Francesca and pushed the throttles hard forward.
With a roar of exhaust noise the stern sank and the boat surged forward. Ben prayed there weren’t any half-submerged rocks in the mouth of the inlet. A few seconds later they shouldered into the first wave in the open sea and the boat seemed to take off in a cloud of spray. Ben hung on to the wheel with grim determination.
However he knew they couldn’t carry on like this for long. As soon as they were out of range of stray bullets, he slowed down and the boat stopped bouncing across the surface of the waves and settled down to plough through the choppy sea. Not that it was any more comfortable. Ben set a course parallel to the shore and about half a mile out to sea. They were heading in a generally North West direction with the waves rolling in across their path. As a result the boat worked its way through the water with a kind of cork-screw motion. Ben knew it must be most uncomfortable below, but he couldn’t spare the time to go and help. All he could do was hope to get into more sheltered waters as soon as possible.