Click!
Hunter unclipped his rappelling rope without bothering to retrieve it.
Beams of light shot down from the cliff above, followed immediately by a burst of gunfire.
At the same moment, car engines roared to life.
Hunter's heart sank; he sprinted forward.
After dodging the bullets, he pulled his fully customized vintage bike from his private space.
He swung into the saddle and kicked the starter.
With a thunderous growl, he tore downhill.
Vroom!
Vroom!
More engine snarls echoed behind him.
Clearly, thanks to Steve's paranoia, the guards hadn't been housed in the villa itself,
but they were camped nearby.
Hearing the bikes closing in, Hunter leaned lower and twisted the throttle wide open.
His engine howled like rolling thunder,
the bike shooting like a spear along the winding mountain road toward the foot of the hill.
Vroom!
The two bikes behind stayed glued to his tail,
their riders obviously familiar with every bend.
Hunter glanced at the speedometer—only seventy mph.
The hill Steve's villa sat on wasn't high; two more turns and he'd hit the main road.
Then he could open her up.
But the pursuers, knowing every pothole, kept accelerating.
He watched them in the mirror, splitting his attention.
His face darkened.
He whipped the throttle again; the newly installed high-output engine shrieked.
In seconds his speed topped a hundred, the bike barrelling ahead.
Brrrrrt!
The instant he accelerated, a low burst of gunfire rang out.
One of the riders chasing him was steering with a single hand,
the other gripping a micro-UZI, spraying rounds wildly.
If not for his Level-4 Driving skill letting him weave left and right, a hit would have been disastrous.
Vroom!
At last he shot off the mountain road onto the highway.
Tucking low, Hunter twisted the throttle again; like an arrow loosed from a bow, he pulled away from the two bikes behind.
Steve himself followed in his Wrangler,
red-eyed after seeing his two safes—and entire fortune—vanish.
One hand on the wheel,
he stayed right behind the bikes while barking orders into a radio with the other.
'Stay on him—fast! I want him alive.'
'Ten grand in us dollars to whoever catches that biker alive.'
Even as he offered the reward, Steve seethed with fury and desperation.
A year and a half ago, he had been with the gold thief Charlie Clock and his crew.
The team used clever deception to succeed in Venice.
They stole a full ton of gold bricks from a secret Italian Mafia stronghold.
Back then, the one who drove to draw the Mafia away was Rob, the speed-demon driver who could handle any vehicle.
That playboy was Charlie's best friend and longtime pal.
Now Steve suspected the motorbike rider trying to lure them away was Rob.
At that thought, Steve slammed on the brakes.
He glared viciously at the three bikes about to vanish from sight.
Then he swung the car around on the highway and headed straight back to the villa.
"Lock down the area around the villa."
"Search every inch!"
"They need to move two safes; that bike was probably a decoy—the safes must still be near the villa."
"Team One, sweep the villa."
"Every room, every corner—check it all."
"Team Two, head to the cliff behind the villa."
"Find out how they climbed up!"
"And search every possible hiding spot nearby."
(ccbh)
"Caves, grass—check everything."
"Don't let a single suspicious person or place slip by."
Clearly, Steve had guessed wrong.
He assumed that tonight the people who had broken into his villa,
slipped past his elaborate defenses and security systems, and managed to spirit away
the two safes holding nearly a ton of gold bricks and most of his wealth by some impossible trick
were none other than the gold thief Charlie and his crew.
Steve had once been part of Charlie's team; for more than a year he'd been on the run, even laying false trails across Europe to draw Charlie and the others away.
Because he knew Charlie too well, he feared him all the more.
Steve watched the villa's Security Personnel and his own men
start a tight, systematic search in every direction under his orders.
He took a few men to the top of the cliff behind the villa to inspect it.
He didn't spare his two dead bully dogs a second glance.
"Boss, there's rope and pitons here!"
A man crouched at the cliff's edge, swept a tactical flashlight over the rock, and quickly spotted Hunter's setup.
"They must have climbed the cliff using these pitons."
"Just now the rider went down the pre-rigged rappel rope from here."
Steve's face was dark as storm water; his men and the villa's security teams were searching everywhere but still hadn't found where the two heavy safes were hidden.
Dozens had fanned out across the area
and still hadn't located Charlie or anyone else lurking nearby.
Steve knew those safes were top-of-the-line models he'd paid a fortune for—most secure, most complex mechanisms on the market.
Even if Old John, the lock-picking master he'd shot dead over a year ago, came back to life,
it would still take him a good ten or twenty minutes to open them.
But Old John had been personally executed by Steve.
He was certain: Steve had fired three shots into Old John—
two to the chest, one dead center through the heart.
When Charlie's car had plunged into the water, Steve hadn't seen the bodies surface, so he couldn't be sure they were dead,
but before he and his men left with the stolen gold, he had seen Old John's corpse float up from the lake.
So the lock-picking master of Charlie's crew was absolutely, positively dead.
"There's no way Charlie could find another lock-picking master this fast."
"The safes must still be nearby…"
"Maybe even inside my villa."
The thought made Steve's face darken even more.
He glanced down the cliff, then turned and strode back toward the house.
Tonight, even if he had to dig three feet into the ground,
Steve would find those two safes holding nearly a ton of gold and most of his fortune—and he would find Charlie and his crew…
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