Counterpoint

Counterpoint

John
Day

This novel is entirely a work of
fiction.

The names, characters, and
incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or
localities is entirely coincidental.

http://johnday.webplus.net/

This book is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other
people. If you would like to share this book with another person,
please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re
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Thank you for respecting the hard
work of this author.

Copyright ©
2014 John Day

All rights
reserved.

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords
ISBN:
9781311166395

It was early morning in Caserta, just
north of Naples. The air was fresh and still, the sun already
warming the air, and casting a green light through the tall trees,
around the clearing.

Just out of sight of a small side road,
the tension was mounting; the exchange of drugs and €2,000,000 was
under way.

Tim had already cocked the machine
pistol before he left his car, now he glided silently out from
behind the buyers van. He had circled behind the group of six young
men, three of his and three of the buyers. Before they saw him, he
opened fire, scything through the six of them before they could
shoot back.

Snapping out the used clip and fitting
a full one, he studied the crumpled bodies.

No one moved.

Without glancing up, he raised his free
hand and beckoned to the red Fiat approaching him, 100 metres away.
Carla, a pretty, 26 year old blond, floored the accelerator and the
car darted towards Tim, tyres squealing and smoking as they clawed
the tarmac. Seconds later, it skidded to a halt; Carla opened the
driver’s door and popped the boot lid. Tim tossed the canvas bags
of heroin and money into the boot, and slammed the lid shut.

As he ran to the open driver’s door,
Carla slid over into the passenger seat. A shot rang out; a bullet
starred the windscreen, and penetrated just above the steering
wheel.

“Ah!” She screamed.

If she had not moved when she did, the
bullet would have smashed into the base of her throat. The bullet
passed out through the door opening, as Tim ran into it. He was gut
shot.

The sledgehammer impact of the bullet,
was not enough to overcome Tim’s onward rush, to get into the car.
He doubled up and fell in. Carla pulled him in towards her, and
eased him upright in his seat. Stunned at the sight of the blood,
oozing from between his fingers as he clasped the wound, she
suddenly realized what had happened.

Another two shots rang out; both hit
the bodywork.

Tim let out a cry of rage; grabbing the
steering wheel with one hand and gear lever in the other. Revving
hard, the car shot forward towards the gunman.

Mortally wounded, one of the six men
had recovered enough, to take revenge for the double cross, and
fired at the driver’s position, in the hope of a hit.

The accelerating car hit the bodies
with a violent lurch; the frantically scrabbling tyres clawed and
tore at clothing and flesh. Tim enjoyed the bumping, slithering
crunching sound as the car tore into and over the corpses.

The gunman had tried to get up, and out
of the way of the car, but it hit him full in the face, throwing
him backward and under the car.

Carla braced herself until the ride
smoothed out, and looked tensely at Tim. How long could he control
the speeding car, and how could she help him?

Tim’s face was fixed in a wild grimace;
staring ahead, he was unaware of anything thing except escape. He
had lost all reason, and was heading on a road, leading to town,
instead of into the mountains, as planned.

A hidden police car waiting for early
morning speeders lurched into motion. Tim’s Fiat took a tight right
hand bend, tyres squealing in a barely controlled four-wheeled
drift, in front of it.

Carla had just noticed the police car
and shouted a warning to Tim. He did not hear her. He was starting
to go into shock now, and was losing consciousness. The Fiat
swerved from one side of the road to the other. In Tim’s hands, a
crash was only seconds away, and arrest would certainly follow.

Carla grabbed the steering wheel and
regained directional control; however, the car was still
accelerating. Tim slumped against the door in a faint, his foot
pressed hard on the accelerator. Carla reached for the ignition
switch on the side of the steering column, and turned it off.
Immediately the Fiat lost speed.

Steering with one hand, she reached
across and opened the driver’s door slightly. The air tearing past
the door prevented it from fully opening. Carla knew she had to
push Tim out, somehow. It had to be when the car was taking a sharp
bend, and centrifugal force would help throw him out.

Regulating the road speed by switching
the ignition on and off, and steering with the other hand, Carla
could only wait for the right moment. The police car was gaining
ground rapidly, so time was running out, fast!

Carla approached a large roundabout at
the edge of town; it was just what she needed. She deliberately
took the roundabout in the wrong direction, drifting across into
the oncoming lane. Tim lurched over to the door, pushing it open.
With all her strength, Carla pushed him out.

Tim fell out slowly, pinched between
the door and door pillar, eventually hitting the road with his face
and chest. Somehow, one of his feet or trouser legs had caught at
the base of the seat, dragging him along the road.

Tim was not quite dead when he hit the
road, so the agony of skin and bone being scraped off on the tarmac
registered somewhere in his brain, for a second or two.

The snagged foot suddenly became
un-snagged when Tim’s outstretched arms were pinned under the back
wheel, to the road. He was ripped out and dragged under the
car.

Carla was nearly thrown out herself
when the rear wheel bucked over the corpse. Seconds later, she slid
behind the steering wheel and at last, took full control of the
car.

The police car was now alongside Carla,
on the inside of the roundabout forcing her onto the verge. Dabbing
the brakes, she dropped behind the police and skidded outwards to
the curb. The police thought Carla was going to take the
approaching exit off the roundabout because the Fiat was drifting
that way, so they took it ahead of her. The skid had scrubbed off
most of the Fiat’s speed even though the verge was slippery. She
continued on to the next exit.

The police driver was quick to realize
his mistake, and with considerable skill, he spun his car around to
follow Carla. His misjudgement was all she needed to escape. She
had the edge, with a nippy car and her will to survive at all
costs.

Roadblocks were being set up, of
course, but Carla was well prepared. She believed that if you fail
to plan, you plan to fail!

Carla headed away from town, back the
way Tim had come, until she reached the turn off to the emergency
escape route. The direction Tim should have taken. With the police
car in close pursuit, she calmly negotiated the narrow road cut out
of the rocky hillside, up towards the forest. The powerful car was
now gaining on her and getting too close for comfort.

Her heart sank as the engine cut out
briefly, then picked up again. Low on fuel she guessed, and the
gauge confirmed it; the fuel pipe, or tank must be leaking! The
long, steady climb with few bends to swill the meagre contents past
the pickup pipe in the tank, had caused the glitch. Zigzagging the
car sloshed fuel around the tank, maintaining a flow to the engine.
The police car was now only 20 metres behind, and gaining,
fast!

“You’re too close,” muttered Carla to
herself as she snatched up a radio controller, stuck with Velcro to
the dashboard. She switched it on as she passed under a rocky
outcrop, and pressed a button, triggering a nitroglycerine charge,
embedded in the rock. The force blasted her car sideways in a
shower of rock fragments, but she quickly regained control and
accelerated away. The blast caught the police car full on, smashing
it sideways into the parapet. Blasted with fist-sized chunks of
rock on one side, and grinding away in showers of sparks on the
other, the police car stalled.

A large landslide fell onto the road
right behind them, blocking it off. Totally stunned by the attack,
it took several moments for the driver to recover and restart the
engine. He floored the accelerator and with the engine screaming,
dropped the clutch. Bucking and screeching against the parapet, the
police car broke free and was in hot pursuit again.

Carla grinned cheekily to herself as
she glanced in her rear view mirror, at the havoc she caused.

“Bang goes you’re no claim bonus Cop,”
she muttered.

Still gripping the controller, she
rounded a bend and pressed it again. Another explosion, and more
rock spread over the road in a landslide; she was almost home
free.

Carla’s engine spluttered and died;
wiggling the steering frantically, brought it back to life.

“Just take me a few hundred metres
more. Please! Please!” She begged. “Don’t let me down now,
please!”

The car surged forward and she backed
right off the accelerator, maximizing every precious drop of fuel,
left in the tank.

A narrow track suddenly came into view
on the left, and she spun the wheel, drove up it a few metres, and
stopped. Just ahead was a particularly dirty, dark green 4X4
vehicle, substantially hidden by the undergrowth.

At a glance, she could see no one was
in it or nearby.

Leaping out of the Fiat with a
different set of car keys, snatched from the glove compartment, she
ran to the dark green Cherokee, beeping it unlocked as she ran.
Before opening the door, she glanced at the dashboard, to see if
any warning lights were flashing. No lights glowed, so she got in
and started the engine. Thankfully, it roared into life.

Dragging the bags of drugs and money
from the Fiat to the Cherokee, she tossed them onto the back seat
and slammed the door shut. Dashing back to the Fiat, she flicked a
switch under the dashboard, and a loud buzzer sounded. Carla ran
back to the other car and drove off into the woods.

A loud thump and a glimpse of flames
through the trees confirmed to Carla, the Fiat had commenced the
destruction process. No traces of fingerprints or forensic evidence
would remain on the car; it had done well and was expendable. The
car would burn for some time, blocking the track to vehicles from
the road, also part of the plan.

The route through the woods was also
well planned. It provided a link to a motorway network (SS7, E45
& A1 merge) offering many possible busy routes out of the area.
The dense tree cover and dull green paintwork also made spotting
the Cherokee difficult from the air.

The track soon petered out and by
carefully following the faint tyre marks left days before when the
route was worked out, Carla managed to find her way. Ten minutes
later, she emerged onto a side road, in sight of the first of a
series of roundabouts.

Carla pulled into a large, busy petrol
station and drove under the canopy near the car wash. There were
two cars ahead of her, in the queue, so she had to wait her
turn.

She looked at herself; there was blood
on her hands, face and all over her clothes. All she could do was
hope no one came close enough to see through the tinted glass.

Five minutes later, it was her turn to
go through the wash. With tokens already in the vehicle; all she
had to do was wind down the window and put them in the car wash
machine.

The wash transformed the Cherokee, it
emerged with gleaming chrome and paintwork; no one would associate
the quietly burbling vehicle going in with the one growling
out.

On the motorway, Carla noted many
police vehicles heading the way she had come, and several
helicopters watching traffic flow near junctions.

By road, there was no quick route to
this section of motorway, from where Carla left the Fiat, so
roadblocks were not set up on this stretch. Because of the dense
undergrowth, and rough terrain, pursuing police did not consider
the cross-country route was feasible. You could spend a day finding
a way through.

Carla pressed on keeping pace with the
mass of vehicles around her and remained unnoticed.

Five miles later she turned off onto a
side road and eventually, into a disused barn, stopping next to an
old, silver Honda Prelude.