~ Energy ~

by

Doc Carson

Richard began to see a villain in every car. His pulse quickened and it felt good. Once through Lecco, they were on the southern end of Lake Como, not far from Lierna and their final destination by car. There, a boat would ferry them across the lake to Francesco Contarini’s compound and safety in Bellagio. SS 36 is a spectacular drive along the shore of one of the most breathtaking lakes in the world. Lake Como is a true alpine lake with thousand-foot cliffs cloaked in emerald forest. Cliffs that dove straight down into the ice blue water. In several minutes, they caught up to a truck lumbering in front of them, and Richard braked the Ferrari to match its crawl. Then another, newer, larger lorry pulled in directly behind them. The road was twisting, with constant small tunnels carved through the rock face. Passing, even in a machine like the California, was out of the question.

The truck to the rear inched closer, squeezing them within a few meters of the truck in front. Richard could see both drivers either in his mirror or the lead truck’s mirror. That lead driver was looking back more than looking forward, talking on a radio every few seconds. Richard’s heart raced, his blood pressure skyrocketing. His mind flashed to the Beretta 9000S tucked under his seat. He smiled, took a deep breath, exhaled, calmed himself.

They were approaching a split tunnel where their lane and the oncoming one were separated by just a meter and entered/exited into two parallel tunnels of rock, one for each lane. Less than a hundred yards from the entrance, Richard slammed the shifter down a gear while punching the clutch and popping it out so fast the car jerked left. The engine screamed and the tach red-lined as he floored the accelerator. The massive power train responded instantly, throwing them back into their seats with the G-force of a jet fighter. Within a second they were even with the lead truck, but a car was now coming directly at them from out of the oncoming tunnel’s mouth.

Dorothy screamed. Richard swore and yanked the transmission up to the higher gear while flawlessly working the double clutch. Another level of Gs slammed their bodies and a sheer howling blasted from under the hood. Shots fired...or was it a backfire? Everything happened at the speed of light. He snapped the wheel right, cutting inches in front of the truck’s bumper. The hurtling car coming at them was close enough to see the passengers screaming in the front seat. It peeled off the opposite shoulder, losing control, sliding down the pebble scree in a cloud of dust and scorched rubber.

Richard over-steered the high performance suspension and they careened toward the cliff face on their right. Coming back left, the exotic car fishtailed in front of the truck then slewed sideways, skimming over fifty miles per hour broadside to the tunnel entrance. Just as the shadow from the rock overhang shot through the car’s interior, Richard was able to straighten out and knife through the opening. Still swaggering left and right, he frantically ran up through the gear sequence, feet and hands moving as a machine.

They were doing over one hundred and fifty miles per hour inside the darkened tunnel, rock walls on either side mere feet away. At that speed, in the relatively short tunnel, they exploded out the other side in seconds. The road ahead was clear in both directions. Richard whipped the brute to its max: two hundred miles per hour. Having never driven that fast in her life, Dorothy almost fainted. She was hyperventilating. Having never driven that fast in his life, Richard never blinked. His face was locked straight ahead, steeled.

They roared around a wide curve and only then did Richard begin to decelerate, slowing methodically through the gears and compressing the gargantuan brakes. They had put a kilometer between themselves and the pursuing trucks. Dorothy still couldn’t speak.

A shadow darted over them, across the road, and shot out onto the lake: a helicopter, a very low helicopter. It came into view for a second through the low, narrow windshield. Their field of vision was too restricted to see the chopper when above them, but they could hear its shrill turbojet engines whistle and the distinctive clapping from the rotor blades. It flew ahead on a straightaway, then spun a hundred and eighty degrees facing them, the menacing rotor disc angled their way as they raced forward. It hovered only a few feet off the ground. Car and copter moved directly at each other with closing speeds in excess of a hundred mph. Richard pumped the brakes, swerved left, right and left again.

They dodged the helicopter, but clearly saw a man aiming a rifle leaning out the left door. Star-patterned sparks erupted from the muzzle. Bullets tore the road’s shoulder, rapidly spewing gravel in a straight line. It was an automatic weapon, Richard realized, and he reopened the throttle and dumped the high octane gasoline into the fuel system. Again, Enzo Ferrari’s creation answered without hesitation, bolting them under the helicopter. Ninety seconds later at that speed, they had reached the outskirts of Mandello del Lario, a modest sized town, but with enough activity and population that their pursuing goblins disappeared.

“My God, they tried to kill us!” Dorothy panted.

Richard, ice cool, turned slightly to her, “It appears so.”