[Brag]

Chapter 34

After driving for five kilometers, Val pulled to the side of the road. "Take the rifles and hide them in the trunk," he told Claudia while he walked up front to inspect the damage. The bumper was slightly bent and the right hand side of the body had some dents and was badly scratched. Relieved that the damage was only cosmetic, Val inspected the windshield stickers. One of them was for the airport. Every little bit helped.
Back in the car and racing toward Split, Val said, "I hope you didn't kill Bogo."
"My handbag, passport and documents are still there. You have turned me into an international criminal. Now the Croat police will be after me, too."
"Shapquine and Boikin will fix it."
"I don't trust those men."
Val didn't trust them either. "That's the best we have."

#

Even with the brief stop, it only took 53 minutes to reach the airport. Val drove sedately around the terminal and to the service gate. "Now comes the moment of truth." He turned into the service road and slowed as they approached the gate.
A guard waved them through and saluted.
As he stopped behind Claudia's airplane, Val said, "I wish I had a knife to slash the tires of Bogo's plane."
"Is the King Air his?"
"We arrived in it."
"That will only delay him half an hour. After I start engines you drive the car into his wing. That will delay him for a long time." Claudia got out of the car.
She walked up to her airplane, stopped and stomped the ground with one foot. She then threw her arms up and turned to Val. "The keys are in my purse!"
"****." Val wanted to bang his head against the steering wheel. This car must have a tire iron. He would jimmy the door open.
Val got out and opened the trunk. He brandished the tire iron.
"I don't think that will work. Besides it will damage the door."
"We can wait here and ask Bogo and his men to help us. They should be here shortly."
Using both hands, Val rammed the lug wrench cum tire iron against the door seam. Except for jarring his bones, there was no effect.
Claudia shook her head. "That will not work. We must shoot the lock."
"Shooting in an airport will bring police like flies to manure." Val tried to think. There had to be a solution, maybe he could borrow a drill from the mechanics by the lunch wagon. Why they were trying to break into the airplane would require a lot of explaining. Especially if the owner didn't have documents.
They didn't have much time. With over an hour to recover, Bogo or one of his henchmen would be doing everything to prevent their escape. One of the first things police did was alert airports. Bogo probably had the cops in his pocket.
"Coke!" Val exclaimed. "I'm gonna get a coke."
Claudia frowned. "Are you crazy?"
"Wait here, I have an idea." Val wanted to run, but that would look suspicious, he strode to the gate a hundred yards away. The lunch van was still parked there though the owner was closing it's side counter. "Hey," Val yelled and waved, now he had and excuse to run.
Approaching the gate, Val slowed to a walk. "Hey, Coca Cola." He waved at a smiling guard, who nodded back.
The vendor spoke in Croatian.
"Coca Cola?" Val asked.
The vendor shook his head. "No Coca Cola." He produced a bottle of Greek Portakalada orange drink. Val needed a plastic bottle, glass wouldn't do. "Voda, voda." He used the Russian word for water.
"Dobro." The vendor took out a bottle of mineral water. It was plastic!
"Dva."
The vendor took out a second bottle. Val paid and marched back through the gate toward the airplane. As he approached, he could see Claudia's legs behind the plane and heard tapping.
When he came around the tail, covered in sweat, Claudia was banging the tire iron against the airplane door. All she had achieved was make small dents and scratch paint.
"I have these," Val showed her the two bottles he brought.
"Mama mia." Claudia rolled her eyes.
Val opened a bottle and emptied it on the ramp.
"Caro, calm down. Somehow we'll get the door open."
"Step aside." Val pushed Claudia away from the door. He pressed the bottle against the lock, took Bogo's pistol and pressed the muzzle against the bottleneck. He took a deep breath and pulled the trigger.
Recoil, a muffled thunk, and fog inside the bottle showed the pistol had fired. Val pulled the primitive noise suppressor away. Almost as neat as if drilled, a hole had replaced the tumbler of the lock. Val pulled the handle out and rotated it.
With a hydraulic hiss, the door opened and swung down converting into stairs.
"Presto, singnora." Val bowed and gestured for Claudia to climb in.
"You only look crazy, let's go." Claudia dashed into the airplane, Val followed. She pulled on the wire that doubled as a handrail and lifted the door closed. "I don't trust the door. We'll have to fly without pressurizing."
"Which means . . ?"
Claudia clambered into the cockpit. "We'll fly low, it burns more fuel, but we'll be okay."
Val squeezed into the copilot's seat, wondering what the procedure was on flight plans and other aviation formalities.
Claudia started the turbines and called on the radio. "Split ground-control, this is India Golf Echo Hotel, taxi VFR Dubrovnik."
Val turned his head sharply. "Hey! We're not going to Dubrovnik."
Claudia waved him off looking annoyed.
"Golf Echo Hotel, Split Ground taxi runway two eight, altimeter setting one zero one seven millibars."
"Roger." Claudia answered. Then she said to Val, "We haven't filed an international flight plan, nor cleared customs. So I told them we're going to Dubrovnik, a domestic flight."
Looking pleased with herself, she released the brakes and taxied out of the ramp.
Before the airplane turned onto the taxiway paralleling the runway, Val glanced at the service gate expecting to see Bogo and his men storming in. Everything looked peaceful.
Established on the taxiway, Claudia let the plane roll faster.
"Golf Echo Hotel, return to the ramp," the controller said on the radio.
Claudia added throttle.
A few seconds later the controller's voice became urgent. "Golf Echo Hotel, return to the ramp."
On the other side of the runway, a pick up truck sporting a large yellow and black checkered flag raced toward the end of the field.
"They will block us," Claudia said, stomping on the brakes. She switched radio frequencies and made a sharp turn unto a taxiway halfway to the end of the runway. "Tower, Golf Echo Hotel ready for takeoff."
"Hold your position, traffic landing."
Again Claudia slammed on the brakes shoving Val's body against the shoulder harness.
A large airliner was about to touch down.
"Golf Echo Hotel, be advised we don't have flight plan, return to the ramp."
The airliner rolled on the runway.
Val watched the airport pick up truck cross the runway and race toward them on the parallel taxiway.
The pick up left the taxiway and bounced over the grass surface in a diagonal course to block the taxiway.
Claudia jammed the throttles forward and rolled in front of the now rumbling airliner.
Val swallowed, hoping the big jet's decreasing speed and Claudia's acceleration worked to prevent a collision.
Even inside Claudia's plane, Val could hear the roar of the airliner's engines in full reverse.
With relief, Val began to breath again when the plane leaped into the air.
"It's only a little over a hundred miles to reach Italian airspace. Twenty minutes flight," Claudia said as she flipped the landing gear handle up. Less than a hundred feet off the ground, she leveled the airplane and accelerated to 300 knots.
"Now, you will add Croats and Italians to the list of people pissed off at your flying."
"I don't think they will pick us up on the radar. Once we are in Italian airspace, I will slow down to less than one hundred knots, the Doppler radar won't pick us up."
"You have it all figured out, don't you?"
"In a world of predator men, a girl has to know how to think."
The word predator triggered a sideline area of knowledge in Val's head. "Look, Miss Know-it-all. Doppler type radar is used in civil aviation air control. The military depend on the actual electronic echo of an object to detect it, not its movement. Even the Taliban were able to detect CIA Predator reconnaissance drones flying at 70 miles per hour."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
Approaching the coast, Claudia dove the airplane following the slopes of the green hills dotted with houses. "There was a German boy who flew undetected and landed in Moscow's Red Square."
"Yeah, he had the terrain, woods, hills and whatever to mask him. Here you have nothing but flat sea. And two air forces to shoot us down."

Chapter 35

Grosseto Airport had acquired a familiarity of home. Claudia's red Fiat was parked where she left it, next to her yellow, corrugated iron hangar. Just like a Stateside garage she opened the hangar doors with a remote, and drove the plane right in.
Flying at only ten feet above the sea had been thrilling for a few minutes then it became a deadly dizzying experience where the slightest wrong move would smash the plane into a million bits.
Though Val had a hundred questions to ask Claudia, he kept quiet.
In the middle of the Adriatic they encountered larger waves and the air the waves displaced made the plane rock like a boat. Beads of perspiration formed on Claudia's upper lip.
On reaching the coast, Claudia had kept the airplane low, flying along valleys and climbing through the passes to cross the Appenine Mountains.
"That was an exhilarating ride," Val said.
"Now, you drive." Claudia rummaged through a storage compartment next to the pilot's seat and produced a key ring.
"And let's do it fast before police comes, maybe asking stupid questions."
Val scampered out of the plane, exited the hangar through a side door, while the main doors rumbled shut. The third key he tried unlocked the Fiat's door.
If one could call a day dedicated to escaping from gangsters a good day, things had gone well. Too well.
A bad premonition stabbed him. Val hesitated opening the door. He shook the shiver off and opened it. Things couldn't get worse than they have been.
He inserted the key into the ignition. Again the premonition stabbed.
He located the hood release latch, pulled it and got out of the car.
Claudia emerged from the hangar as Val opened the hood.
"Do we have problem?"
Val looked into the engine compartment, half expecting to see a bundle of dynamite sticks. Everything looked normal. "Just checking the oil," he said feeling stupid.
"You are an impossible worry too much about everything professor--andiamo."
He slammed the hood shut and got back into the car.
Without needing directions, Val drove toward the D'Albano estate. The sun had just set when he passed San Luca. Ten minutes later he turned into the nature reserve. He wondered if Boikin was waiting at the D'Albano manor or was out trying to find him in Croatia. Next to him, Claudia appeared to be dozing.
Val wondered how come he didn't see any of the wild cows that usually gathered by the salt lick in the evenings.
Ahead, something blocked the road.
Val switched the headlights on.
A dead horse, its legs stiff in rigor mortis, lay by the road.
Val switched off the headlights and stopped the car.
"My God," Claudia said.
The dead horse was saddled.
Val killed the engine, stepped outside, crouched and listened.
"What are you doing?"
"Quiet," he hissed.
Chill air and wintry silence. Small patches of fog were beginning to form close to the ground.
Twenty yards beyond the horse, sprawled a human body.
"Stay here, Val reached inside and handed Claudia Bogo's pistol. He whispered, "Move quietly to those trees."
In the remaining light, he saw Claudia nod.
"I'll be back shortly. I'll whistle when I come close. Shoot anyone else."
Trying to stay in the shadows created by the trees on the side of the road, Val moved past the dead horse. The dead man wore the clothes of a Butteri and still grasped a shotgun.
The horse and his rider were killed at least three hours ago. The corpses were beginning to smell. Val doubted the attacker was still around. Nevertheless, he got off the road and proceeded toward the cluster of buildings with extreme caution and his pistol ready.
By the time Val reached the granary, it was completely dark. From behind the corner of the stone building, he watched the dark main house.
Expecting to be shot at, crouching and zigzagging, he dashed across the plaza-like space and pressed himself against the main house wall. Standing still and hopefully invisible, he tried to listen for movement inside the house. Slowly he slithered toward the front door.
Everything he had learned from his father as a boy came back to him almost like reflex. Val's breathing was steady so were his hands.
Slowly he pressed the door handle. The door was unlocked, he flung it open and dove inside.
He slid on the floor and hit something solid. He knew it was a corpse.
Val crouched in a corner of the vestibule. In the total darkness he couldn't see a thing. An old clock ticked in the living room.
Val waited five minutes. He then stood, went to the front of the room and switched the light on. The sudden buzz of flies startled him.
Val fought hard to contain his nausea.
Her white apron stained with blood, Rosalia lay on the floor, her Mauser pistol next to her. She'd been hit multiple times and her face was disfigured by at least two bullet wounds.
A separate pool of coagulated, fly-speckled blood indicated another body had been hit and dragged outside.
Boikin, still gripping a pistol lay stretched at the entrance to the sitting room.
Val picked up and inspected Rosalia's Mauser. It hadn't been fired.
In the sitting room, Stuart had been shot while sitting in a wing chair, a bullet between the eyes.
"Damn," Val said before vomit surged up his throat.
Breathing hard, he brought himself under control and tried to piece together what had seen. The murderers had been fast. They probably knocked on the door. When Rosalia opened it, they shot her. Boikin managed to shoot one of the intruders before being cut down. Stuart, still sitting, never knew what was happening.
In the kitchen, two bullets on his chest had knocked Claudia's houseman/driver backward as he sat by the sturdy kitchen table, leaving a large plate of soup half-eaten.
The door into Claudia's office was broken and her studio was a mess of emptied drawers. Val rushed around the house looking for Shapquine's body.
He only found rooms in disarray.
At least Shapquine was alive, or was he? Was this good or bad? The question startled him. Good or bad, it didn't matter one led one's life by trusting people.
Except now there was hardly anyone in the world left to trust.