I watched it get nearer, its bulk coming between us and the rest of the canal, and then, as it reached the Fornace, I put the boat in gear and shot out to run along its starboard side, invisible to the police while I chugged along in its shadow. We began to rock a little in the wake. A few people on deck noticed us, one waving us away with his hand, warning us. In another minute the vaporetto would head for the Salute landing station, squeezing me, but not before we passed the Rio della Salute, still blocked from view, and I swung away and headed down the side canal.
The Salute rio ran parallel to the Fornace but farther down, almost at the customs house. If I entered the Giudecca there, away from the waiting police boat, I might be able to run along the dark side of the Dogana and reach the bacino at its tip, pulling toward San Marco into the Grand Canal boat’s patrolling area but too far away to be seen. If I could outrun the Giudecca boat. This canal was narrower than the Fornace and even quieter. Only a few people lived at this end of Dorsoduro, wedged in between the great church and the customs house. We were out of it in minutes, turning left to hug the tip of land, almost afraid to look back. We had no lights to see, and our motor was far enough away to be indistinct—no reason to notice us at all. Just keep going. In seconds we’d be out of range.
“They’re coming,” Rosa said, facing backward.
Maybe just to look, a routine check. But the minute I speeded up they’d know, without even having to pull back the tarp.
Claudia turned around, spotting the light too. “Go behind San Giorgio,” she said. “Like before.”
“We can’t. We’ll never lose them there.”
“At least it’s dark there, remember? Nobody saw us.”
“Nobody was chasing us,” I said. “Okay, hold on, it’s going to bump. Rosa, hang on to him.” Rosa, who had been watching us, just nodded.
We passed the tip of the customs house with its golden ball and I swerved slightly to the left, streaking across the basin toward the doges’ palace, then along the curve of the Riva. The one place in Venice I’d wanted to avoid, open and bright, center stage. But also busy with traffic, boats to the islands and Danieli taxis and ferries leaving for the Adriatic. I realized that, unexpectedly, the boats here became trees in a forest, something to dodge around, slip behind. We passed San Zaccaria, passed the Rio dei Greci, the way to the Questura, heading finally toward the darker end of Venice, the empty public gardens and the lagoon beyond. In the lagoon, still covered by clouds, we could make it. We hit the wake from another boat, lifting up, then smashing down with a thud, water spraying over everything. Moretti cried out. Our speed now was drawing attention, too fast for the harbor. If I could pull away into the city again, thread us somehow through the back of Castello, we might lose the police, but the canals were a maze here, watery blind alleys. The police hadn’t outrun us yet. Just a few more seconds and we’d be in the dark.
On cue, a searchlight came on behind, hitting the water next to us in a long white beam, then moving left until our boat was flooded with light. Claudia ducked, lowering herself out of sight. I swerved, but whoever was operating the light had the rhythm of it now and followed us, tracking us smoothly. In a minute there would be a horn, someone yelling at us to stop. My mouth went dry.
“There are two,” Rosa said. “Only one has the light.” Calculating odds. What she must have been like on their other raids, harrying Germans.
Moretti crawled out from under the tarp and pulled himself along the side of the boat. We hit another wake and I could see him grimace, pain and something more, a frantic desperation, blinking against the glare, as if the light itself were hitting him, making him hurt. Then, almost before I could register what was happening, his hand came up and a gun went off, a roar past my ear. Claudia screamed. He fired again, and suddenly the light went off, hit or just temporarily doused.
“Stop it! You’ll kill us!” Claudia shouted, jumping at him and grabbing the gun. It was Rosa who snatched it, however, handing it over to Claudia and pulling him back to the tarp.
“What can you hit like this?” she said to him gently, putting the towel back on his wound. She pulled out her own gun. “Don’t worry. You,” she said to Claudia, “can you shoot?”
“No. Stop. If we do this—”
The light came on again, touching the edge of the boat, and then there was gunfire, bullets hitting the water next to us. We crouched down, Claudia and Rosa peering back at the police boat. I kept steering, bobbing my head, a moving target. There was a sharp thunk behind me, a bullet hitting wood, not far from the motor. Not far from any of us. Real bullets. I felt everything rushing out of control. Cut the engine. Hold up your hands. It was time to stop. Real bullets.
“Get the light,” Rosa said, steadying her hand and firing, a marksman’s stance.
“They’re going to kill us all, and he’s going to die anyway,” Claudia said, her voice jagged.
“Then take one with you,” Rosa said. “Shoot. It’s Fossoli, and this time you have a gun.”
Claudia looked at her.
“It’s the same people. Shoot.”
But it was Rosa who shot, taking her time, careful, then smiling when she heard the ping of metal, glass smashing, and the light suddenly went out. Another burst of gunfire hit the water next to us. I could hear yelling on the boat behind, confusion. Our one second chance. It didn’t matter where the back canals went. If we stayed here, we’d be killed.
I pushed the tiller hard and the boat veered left, heading straight for the nearest canal. A high bridge, dark water behind, only a few streetlights after the Riva. It was only after we’d passed under the bridge that I saw the tall brick towers at the end of the rio, the crenellated walls stretching out from the water entrance. The Arsenale, the republic’s old shipyard, silent now for years. Navy property, but not locked—a vaporetto route went through it, past the walled-in docks and out the other end, a shortcut to the northern lagoon.
I looked behind us. The police had seen the turnoff, were now racing toward the bridge at the rio entrance. Only the usual boat lights, no more beacon. In the Arsenale it would be almost pitch-dark, just a few corner lamps for night watchmen. Nothing came through here but the vaporetti. And nothing got out, if you stopped up either end. I tried to remember its shape from the map—a box of water surrounded by warehouses and ships’ works, a rio out in each direction, not completely hemmed in. A connecting boatyard to the right, a longer way out, but an alternative. Unless the navy had closed it off. If they were here at all. What ships were left would be in Taranto. Nothing had been built here since the first war. The foundries, the ropemakers, were all just memories, something to mention to tourists as they sailed through. A deserted factory on water. And a trap if we couldn’t make it through.
I had decided to head right, toward the connecting boatyard, when I heard the shot behind us. Close enough to shoot again. Someone leaned out of one of the tower windows, shouting. Guarded after all. But what were they guarding? In a moment I saw. I made an abrupt turn after the towers, hoping for a clear path to the other boatyard, and instead found myself surrounded by ghost ships. The Arsenale was dotted with yellow fog lights, everything shuttered, the docks lined with rusting, pre-Mussolini warships. A ship graveyard, clotted enough to obscure the opening to the adjoining basin. But now it was too late to head back to the lagoon. I could hear the police boats, already at the entrance towers. Still, we’d have to try. Nobody would stay in a bottleneck. But that’s what they would think too.
I turned the boat once more. An old warship lay almost listing against the dock, its wide middle close enough to board by jumping but its tapered bow and stern sitting out in the water. I made another quick turn, almost fishtailing, then cut the motor behind the stern, bobbing in a narrow slot of water between the rusting hulk and the stone walls of the dock. The boat rocked, and I grabbed a rope from the dock to hold us steady until our wake had subsided. Then I pulled us farther in, making sure the boat didn’t stick out past the warship’s stern. A hiding hole, dark. Nothing to see but rusting steel.