cursed.
‘What. The. Fuck.’
Amy tilted her face, apologetically.
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
‘What?’
‘Sorry…’
‘It’s not your fault.’
‘But…’ She shook her head. ‘But it is. Maybe you should go home, David. Miguel is my problem.’
‘No. No way. This is my problem too.’
‘But I told you what he is like. Murderously jealous. He…really will…do something. He might even…’
‘Kill me?’
She winced.
David felt the surge of a rebel spirit.
‘Fuck him. I want to know the answers.’ He started the car and negotiated the road slowly for a few minutes. ‘I want to know it all. My grandfather wouldn’t have sent me here – sent me into all this – unless he had a reason. I want to know why.’
‘The map.’
‘Exactly. The map. You heard what José said, saw how he reacted – there is something – something –’
He was searching for a way to describe the complexity of puzzles; his next words were interrupted.
‘Don’t stop.’
‘What?’
‘Drive on.’
‘What?’
David felt the cold possibility constrict around his heart.
Amy confirmed.
‘Miguel. In the car. Right behind.
Her eyes were locked on the mirror. David copied her gaze.
‘Jesus.’ He squinted. ‘Are you sure? Is it the same one?’
‘Numberplate. It’s him.’
The road ahead was narrow, the fog was thickening as they climbed the mountainside.
‘But…’ David gripped the steering wheel tightly. ‘Was he there all along? Following?’
‘Who knows. Maybe he followed us. Or…’
‘What?’
‘He is ETA. This is real ETA territory.’
‘So…’
‘They watch the roads all the time. He has friends and contacts all over. Maybe someone made a phone call. We were just parked there by the village. What do we do?’
The fear was tangible. But David felt the rising defiance – again. He thought of his beloved mother and father: who left him alone. He thought of his loneliness: he’d had to fight his way through college, on his own, with just a distant grandfather in Phoenix. He had made it through all that shit, he had dealt with all that, so he wasn’t going to be frightened off, even by the most demonic of murdering terrorists. Not now. Not when he knew his grandfather’s mystery was linked to his own background, his own identity. This revelation of his Basqueness.
And he didn’t like being hunted.
‘Let’s lose this bastard.’
Pressing the throttle, he accelerated up the narrow, sharply curving road; the noise of the engine was painful as they shot between the stony hedgerows and the muddy slopes. Then he checked the mirror.
The red car was closing.
‘Shit.’
David could taste the savour of alarm; he ignored it, and changed down a gear or two – then he surged on, as fast as he could.
‘David –’
On their left was a sudden cliff-edge. The slope was brutal – a fall of three hundred metres, or more. Just a few metres the wrong way and they would spin helplessly over the precipice.
David steered back to safety – but then – thump.
The red car had smacked into them. The bump from behind was firm, deliberate, and destabilizing. David gripped the wheel desperately, and kept them gripped to the road – then he flicked a frightened glance at the mirror. He couldn’t see for sure, but it felt like their pursuer was…smiling?
‘Don’t worry, it’s alright –’ he said to Amy.
Why was he saying this? He was terrified. And yet he was feeling a rush of fury as well. Not now. Don’t give up now. If he gave up – what had it all been for? All those years of doing nothing, sitting in that sterile office, being a lawyer; struggling to make relationships, so scared that people would leave him – leave him alone, again.
His heart swelled with angry revolt; he was going to save Amy, and save himself – he could do it.
The accelerator crushed to the floor, he raced the car as fast as he dared. He felt a certain confidence as he did this – despite his grinding fears. He’d had to learn to drive when young, to get himself around. He was pretty good.
But this was a different kind of driving: they were skidding madly round bends, higher and higher. And they were being chased.
Then the road began to zigzag, turns getting tighter, until at last it slashed around a sheer rock wall, totally blind – David caught his own breath, his heart thumped, this was it – but the corner was clear.
David scoped the mirror. The red car had slowed for a moment, he’d outpaced their remorseless pursuer. He had a few seconds’ grace.
As they roared along, he tried to think. If they stopped the car and got out and ran, maybe they could hide…but the red car was surely too near. Miguel had a gun, maybe he would chase them across the rocks. Teasing them – then shooting them. A simple execution in the forest.
‘David!’
The red car was speeding towards them. David couldn’t go any faster. They had reached the crisis: the terminal moment. No one would see. They were right above the clouds now; the sun was brilliant and dazzling, shining off clumps of unmelted snow. This was where they would die. A man and a woman in a car. Like his parents. Both dead.
But then David saw a chance. Up ahead was an expanse of bare rock. Three seconds later he slid the car onto a flank of raw limestone and did a squealing handbrake turn. They spun like they were kids in a nightmarish fairground ride, a vicious carousel.
And it worked.
