He gave the mirror another cursory look. To his surprise, the light-green timber lorry seemed to be gaining on them. It was going too fast for the road and he felt a stab of anxiety. How would it cope with the rockfall debris? Perhaps the driver was familiar with this way, but such a vehicle would be difficult to control when it came to negotiating difficult terrain, and braking would be grindingly slow. Instinctively, Wilde put his foot down gently, to maintain distance.

‘OK, Professor?’ Heck had seemed to sense the tension in Wilde’s hands.

Wilde’s eyes flicked between the road and the mirror. ‘What the hell is he doing?’ he said under his breath as the green lorry swerved its way through the scattered boulders.

Heck hadn’t seen the truck. Now he turned around. ‘Goddamn it, Wilde, I don’t think he can slow down. You’re going to have to motor.’

That was impossible. The road was narrow and passing places were few and far between. To their right was sheer rock wall, to their left, the precipice.

Despite his misgivings, Wilde accelerated again, but even thirty miles an hour was too fast for this stretch and he felt a real stab of fear; they were approaching the most severe of the hairpins.

And then they saw the second truck, a heavy black lorry, growling up the mountain road, straight at them.

Chapter 13

Wilde couldn’t brake. The truck following them was now gaining at an alarming speed and had swept through the rockfalls like a racing driver cutting through chicanes. If the jeep stopped now, they would simply be crushed against the rock wall or swept over the edge to certain death. But how could they find a way past the oncoming vehicle grinding its way uphill, its driver seemingly oblivious of the immediate peril facing all three vehicles.

The driver of the heavy black lorry displayed no sign of being aware of the danger, making no effort to pull in against the rock face to make way for the jeep. His steady, laborious progress did not alter. Perhaps he hadn’t seen them. Perhaps he didn’t have enough power to get up this road if he didn’t make it in one go.

Wilde felt the sweat drip into his eyes.

What a stupid bloody way to die. Survive a war and plummet off a mountain precipice.

There was no time to talk, no time to consult with Lieutenant Mozes Heck, let alone say goodbye. No time even to pray.

A hundred yards ahead they somehow had to make an impossible turn at speed on the sharpest of the hairpins. Would the jeep even be able to corner at this speed? And then what? They would hit the oncoming black truck head on. Wilde glanced at the dials and saw his speed was thirty. He estimated the green timber lorry behind to be doing fifty or more. It would rear-end them in seconds, crushing them into the front end of the black truck, crumpling them like a cigarette packet. Or it would bulldoze them over the lip of the road down hundreds of feet to certain destruction.