Slowly the blackness becomes greyness and he can just about make out the basement door. He reaches down and feels the area around his feet.
His hand touches splintered wood.
Concentrate, Jack. Time is running out.
Jack wills all his feelings to the tip of his fingers.
Dirt, ground, wood, dust – metal.
Metal!
He has the knife.
He feels around for its blade.
Time, Jack. Time is running out!
Jack puts his hand down again.
No gun.
He can't find the gun.
He stops searching and pulls himself up and out of the broken stairway.
In front of him, only inches away, is the basement door.
And behind it, the life or death of Ludmila Zagalsky.
Jack takes a deep breath and fears that it might be the last one he ever draws.
If the door is wired, it's all over.
He crashes his shoulder against the wooden slab.
It doesn't move.
He dives deep into his reservoir of mental strength and powers his entire weight into his shoulder.
The door creaks.
Jack goes again.
He feels it move, but only fractionally.
'Aaargh!' screams Jack, as he drives all his weight and effort into the door.
The lock bursts and he falls headlong into the room. His hands and knees slide along the black plastic sheeting.
Jesus Christ! What is this? Where the fuck am I?
Jack stands up and sees the walls and ceiling are also lined with the black sheeting. It's as though he's suddenly tumbled into one of his own nightmares. And then he sees her. The naked, dying body of Ludmila Zagalsky, spreadeagled before him. The woman he's been instructed to kill. Spider makes no effort to chase after the child. Instead, his finger hovers over the button on the remote detonator, itching to trigger the electronic charges and blow the house to kingdom come.
He watches as Jack checks the girl's chains and smiles as he sees him discover that they're attached to thick, metal hoops that are screwed into the basement's concrete floor.
Four minutes gone.
Spider turns the detonator over and over in his hand.
Wait, Spider. It will be all the more special if you control yourself and wait.
'That's my knife, King,' he says jokingly as the light glints off the steel in Jack's hand. 'You really have no right to be borrowing things without my permission.'
Spider watches eagerly as Jack cuts through the leather restraints on Sugar's hands and legs.
He's not going to kill her; the fool is going to free her, just as expected.
He glances once more at Nancy and sees she's still unconscious.
'Wake up!' He'd like her conscious when he kills her. Maybe kills her at the same time he kills her husband.
Nancy's eyelids flicker. She has nice lips, he notices, nice and sweet to kiss as he sucks the last breath from her body.
He shuffles the remote in his hand. 'Wake up!' Spider pulls Nancy upright.
Her eyes open a fraction. Just enough for Spider to see that she's coming round, and for him to get his finger over the right button. Terry McLeod isn't about to be told what to do by some kitchen boy with a mop. He walks back through the hotel and then stomps his way to the fenced-off area marked Private.
Respect – kids today have no respect.
He reaches over the small gate, flips the catch and pushes it open.
Mrs King, I have to admit, I've not been honest with you. I am not actually a tourist, in fact I'm an internationally acclaimed travel writer and photographer, and I'm here to do a feature on your fine establishment. Now, I would just like to ask you a few questions.
McLeod rehearses his lines and is confident she will be putty in his hands – providing he can find her. The kitchen boy said he was certain she was in the garden, so in the garden she must be. He searches the orchard and the pretty herb area boxed off with clipped privet hedging.
Nothing.
Then he searches the vegetable garden, carefully making his way through the onions, tomatoes, cucumbers and radishes. He comes to the patch where the ground falls away. It isn't new to him; he'd spotted it through his binoculars as he'd settled into his rocky hide on the distant hillside, and he'd seen it close up when she'd discovered him prowling her grounds. But what he sees now shocks him to his core.
Down on the soil below him is the King child.
His mouth is bound with parcel tape. His hands are tied in front of him. And around his neck is a length of rope. Jack cuts the final restraint.
He knows he's reached the point of no return. Can he really do what's been demanded of him, and kill her? Will taking her life really save his son?
What choice is there?
The only thing that Jack is certain of is that his own life and that of the poor girl lying limply in front of him are now dangling on a thread.
Knowing that his every move is being watched, Jack turns slowly around, looking for a camera. He sees one almost at head height, on a wall to the right of him.
He pulls out the phone, flicks off the hold button and traps it between his shoulder and ear. 'Jones, can you hear me?'
For a moment there's silence, and Jack wonders if it's because the killer is surprised by hearing his real name being used.
'I hear you, Jack,' says Spider, looking down at his watch.
Four minutes and fifty seconds.
'You've got ten seconds to kill the girl.'
'The game's changed. Let me hear my wife and child, and then I'll kill this girl any way you want. I don't care about her, just let my family go.'
Spider studies Jack on the monitor and sees desperation etched into every line on his face.
Could he really kill her? Maybe, just maybe. The love of a parent is so strong; it's possible that he'll do anything, even kill the woman he's been trying to save, just to have a chance of keeping his son alive.
'Listen closely,' says Spider. He yanks the tape from Nancy's mouth and holds the cell phone close to her as he grabs a handful of hair and pulls it out in one vicious tug.
Jack winces as he hears Nancy scream. He feels another rush of adrenaline and anger inside him. 'Now my son. I want to hear my son.'
Even though he knows he's gone, Spider instinctively glances across the darkness of the catacomb. 'No deal, King. Get on with it. Or the next thing you'll hear down this phone is the sound of me killing your wife, then you'll hear your son, you'll hear him screaming under my knife.'
Jack drops the phone.
Do it now! he tells himself. He fumbles around on the black plastic-covered floor, seemingly taking an age to pick up the phone. Nothing, nothing in the world matters to him as much as the lives of his wife and child.
Jack stares into the camera, his eyes brimming with hate, his mind throbbing with fear and confusion.
He walks around to the far side of the bondage table so the camera can clearly see both him and the girl.
Do it! This is your only chance to keep them alive.
Spider leans closer to the monitor.
Jack uses his left hand to brush hair from Lu's neck and then he tilts her head back. 'God, please forgive me for this,' he says. Slowly, he draws the razor-sharp kitchen knife in a bloody cut, straight across her throat.
Spider's face is only inches from the monitor screen but he still can't believe what he sees. He gasps as the reality of what has happened sinks in.
Jack King has cut her throat.
The blood is flowing. It's all over him. He's cut her throat. McLeod scrambles into the crater beneath him and rushes to the child.
Mary Mother of God, who could do something like this?
'It's okay, son, don't worry. It's all going to be all right.'
The child's eyes are wide with panic. His face is crimson and McLeod can see his chest heaving as he struggles to breathe.
The sticky parcel tape has been looped several times around the boy's mouth and is plastered to his hair. There isn't going to be any painless way of removing this. McLeod turns Zack around and searches for the end of the tape. He finds an overlap near the back of the youngster's right ear. He scratches at it with his fingernails until a flap lifts.