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another bullet when Anatoly shook his head and made a sharp gesture. ‘I do it.’ His Italian was primitive, but the warning tone in his voice was clear.
    He stepped over to the dying man. Flipped him over with the toe of his expensive alligator boot and stared down at him for a moment as he lay there helplessly on his back, gasping, blood welling from the bullet hole in his chest. Then Anatoly raised his right foot, smiled and stamped the heel down on Mauro’s throat. It crushed his trachea as if squashing a roach. Mauro gurgled up gouts of blood, then his eyes rolled back in their sockets and he was dead.
    The road was still deserted. The three passengers from each ambush vehicle got out and quickly cleaned up the scene. Few words were exchanged between the Italians and the Russians, but they worked together quickly and efficiently. The bodies were dragged over to the pickup, where zip-up coroner’s bodybags were waiting for them. Earth was sprinkled over the blood pools on the road. In less than two minutes, every last trace of the killings was erased.
    Four bulging holdalls were transferred from the Audi to the van. Anatoly and Gourko clambered into the back of the Mercedes together with Rykov, Turchin and Scagnetti. Rocco Massi switched over to take the van’s wheel and was joined up front by Bellomo and Garrone. Carraciolo and Petrovich took their places in the Nissan and the Audi. Doors slammed in the still, hot air. The convoy took off.
    Exactly seven minutes after the van had been intercepted, it was back en route to its destination. They’d stop on the way for their final briefing, to make sure everyone knew exactly what they were doing, and to wait until the time was right.
    Then it was game on.

Chapter Eight
    Ben Hope loved beaches. Not the heaving nightmare of scorched flab and sun tan lotion it was so hard to avoid all up and down the coasts of Europe from May through September, but the secluded kind of place where you could sit and watch the tide hiss in over the sand and be alone with your thoughts for a while. After his lunch he’d taken a long stroll down by the shore, carrying his shoes in his hand and letting the cool water wash over his bare feet. Shielding his eyes from the sun, he’d looked out across the Gulf of Gaeta. Due west, the nearest land was Sardinia.
    Then he’d retraced his steps back to the car, wiped the sand from his feet and started making his way further up the coastal road.
    It was getting on for six in the afternoon, and the sun was beginning to dip lower in the sky by the time he entered a colourful-looking village a few kilometres from the town of Aprilia. He felt tired of driving. Maybe it was time to think about stopping, parking up somewhere and exploring the place for a nice, quiet hotel. It felt a little decadent to be taking things this easy, but the last thing he wanted was to hit Rome too early and have to deal with the oppressive heat and noise of the place with nothing else to do but sit around waiting for his flight tomorrow afternoon, fretting about Brooke and what the hell he wanted to do with his life.
    Those were the thoughts in Ben’s mind when a black cat suddenly streaked out of a concealed entrance behind a hedge and darted across the road in front of him.
    Followed closely by a running child.
    Ben slammed his foot urgently on the brake pedal. He felt the percussive kickback of the ABS system against the sole of his shoe as the Shogun’s tyres bit hard into the dusty tarmac and brought the car to a skidding halt barely a couple of metres from the kid.
    The young boy was maybe nine or ten years old. He stood rooted in the middle of the road, staring wide-eyed with shock at the big square front of the Mitsubishi. Ben flung open the car door, jumped out and stormed up to him.
    On the other side of the road, the black cat paused to stare a moment, then slunk away into the bushes.
    ‘Didn’t your mother teach you to look where you’re going?’ Ben raged