The Lost Relic. Scott Mariani

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       Chapter Seven

      Normally, nobody would have known or cared where the van was going. It was an ordinary Mercedes commercial vehicle, dirty white, battered and rattly with SERVIZI GIARDINIERI ROSSI in faded letters on its flanks. One of a million vans that came and went every day and attracted no attention. There was nothing remarkable or unusual about the driver and the two guys sitting up front with him in the cab, either. Their names were Beppe, Mauro and Carmine and they all worked for the small firm based outside Ánzio that sold garden supplies and landscaping materials. Their last job today was hauling a load of ornamental slabs and edging stones to the Academia Giordani, the art school place out in the sticks where they’d been delivering a lot of stuff lately.

      At just after four in the afternoon they were heading down a narrow country road that was deserted apart from a black Audi Q7 behind them. It had been sticking with them for a few kilometres, and every so often Beppe glanced in his wing mirror and scowled at the way the big SUV was hanging so close up his arse. Mauro was smoking a cigarette and content-edly enjoying the peace before he’d have to pull on his work gloves and get down to unloading the heavy stuff in the back. In the window seat, Carmine was brooding as usual.

      Without warning, a pickup truck lurched out of a side road thirty metres ahead and Beppe’s attention was snatched away from the irritating Audi behind them. He braked sharply. Mauro was caught unawares and spilled forwards in his seat, his cigarette falling into his lap.

      ‘Son of a—’

      The pickup rolled out across the road and then, inexplicably, it stopped. There was no way to drive around it. It was a chunky four-wheel-drive Nissan Warrior, five guys inside. Beppe honked his horn angrily for them to get out of the way, but the only response was a flat stare from the driver. His window was rolled down and a forearm thicker than a baseball bat was draped casually along the sill. This was a guy with at least a decade of serious toil invested in the weights room. The width of his jaw hinted at steroid use. His eyes were hidden behind mirrored wraparound shades, but he appeared to be gazing calmly right at the van.

      ‘What the fuck are they doing?’ Mauro said.

      ‘Out the way, moron!’ Beppe shook his fist, fired some abuse out of the open window, and when that didn’t elicit any further response he threw open his door and jumped down from the cab. Carmine and Mauro exchanged glances and then got out and followed. The pickup truck doors opened slowly and the two guys in front stepped out and began to walk over. The driver towered head and shoulders over his passenger. Mauro swallowed as they got closer.

      ‘Hey, fuckhead. Can’t you see you’re blocking the road?’ Beppe shouted at them. Carmine and Mauro prepared to back him up as the pickup guys kept on approaching. Road rage, Italian style. This wasn’t the first time for them. But it wasn’t just the size of the big guy that was unsettling. It was the way all the pickup guys looked so completely calm. The three still inside the vehicle hadn’t moved a muscle, seemingly unperturbed by what was happening. Beppe’s stride faltered just a little as he drew closer. ‘So you going to move that truck out the way or what?’ Maybe negotiation was better than outright aggression.

      The big guy just smiled, and then quite casually came out with a string of obscenities so appalling and confrontational that Beppe reeled as if he’d been slapped. That was when the argument kicked off in earnest, insults flying back and forth as Beppe and his companions squared up to the pickup guys, toe to toe in the middle of the road.

      The three were so taken up with yelling and threatening, prodding and shoving that they’d forgotten all about the black Audi Q7 that had been following them. Too preoccupied to notice that, like the Nissan pickup, it had two men up front and three sitting calmly in the back. And none of them noticed when the Audi’s front doors opened quietly.

      The driver of the Audi was Spartak Gourko. Sitting next to him in the passenger seat was Anatoly Shikov. Gourko’s hair was freshly razed to his scalp in a severe buzz-cut. While Anatoly liked to look stylish, Gourko didn’t make the effort. There was little point, not with the disfigurement of the mass of scar tissue that extended down the left side of his face from temple to jaw. An old fragmentation grenade wound from the first Chechen War, it twisted his mouth and brow into a permanent scowl that made him look even more pissed off than he nearly always was.

      Anatoly was pleased with his little scheme so far. It was a lot more inventive than his father’s. The idea of getting one of their Italian associates to call up pretending to order more materials for the art gallery grounds had occurred to him on the flight. Naturally, the Italians were under the impression that the whole thing was his father’s idea, so nobody questioned anything.

      And this way was going to be so much more fun.

      OK, so the old man might be a little pissed off at him for altering one or two minor details of the plan – but as long as he got what he wanted in the end, what did it really matter? Ends and means, and all that. Wasn’t like his father hadn’t done some crazy shit himself, back in the day when he was coming up. Anatoly was well versed in the legend of the hardest son of a bitch who’d ever walked the earth. He only wanted to measure up, that was all. And have fun doing it.

      Anatoly smiled quietly to himself as he climbed out of the car and he and Gourko walked unnoticed up behind the arguing Italians. He nodded to the pickup driver. The big guy’s name was Rocco Massi, and he was one of their main contacts over here. Anatoly wasn’t exactly sure, but he thought Massi’s boss was a friend of his old man’s. The rest of the Italian crew were called Bellomo, Garrone, Scagnetti and Caracciolo. Anatoly couldn’t remember which was which. He trusted them well enough, СКАЧАТЬ