'Sorry, little man, this is going to hurt a bit.'
McLeod grips the child tight with his left arm and begins to pull the tape free. The first loop comes off easily because it is virtually doubled over itself but the final circle of tape yanks clumps of fine blond hair out of the back of the child's head. Zack's whole body jerks with pain as the tape is torn away.
McLeod holds him by his shaking shoulders and looks straight at him. 'Be brave, little guy, just a bit more and it'll be off your face.'
The kid is wild-eyed with fright and McLeod knows the best thing to do now is to get it over with as quickly as possible.
He puts one hand against Zack's face and peels off the last of the wide, heavy-duty tape.
Zack starts crying and gasping for air as soon as the tape comes free of his mouth.
'M-m-m-mommy!' he sobs and McLeod holds him tight.
Gradually the child's crying begins to subside and McLeod wipes his face and comforts him. 'It's okay, son. I'm going to get this nasty tape off your hands, and then we'll find your mom.'
'P-please help Mommy,' pleads Zack.
'Where is she?' asks McLeod, getting a finger hold on the tape around the youngster's wrists. 'Where's your mom?'
Zack nods towards the thin, black slit in the hillside and his body shakes some more. 'Mommy's in there.'
McLeod drags the last of the tape from the boy's wrists. His skin is red and tender but the hands and wrists don't seem damaged.
'I'm going to help your mommy, Zack,' he says, 'but first, we're going to make you safe. Okay?'
Zack is too scared to respond, his eyes never leaving the gap in the hillside.
McLeod hoists him into his arms and hugs him. Then, still holding him close, he heads back up the soil banking. It's a slow and clumsy climb as the earth shifts and slides beneath his feet.
Breathless, he makes it to the top of the crater and stands Zack up. 'Run to the house, kid! Run and get help.'
McLeod taps Zack on the bottom, and then the child runs as fast as he can towards the safety of the hotel kitchen. McLeod slithers back down the banking once more, determined to find Nancy King. Spider almost loses track of time as he stares at Jack cradling Lu's bloody head in his hands.
He still can't believe what he's just seen.
He hits a key on the laptop and the camera remotely zooms in on the heavy flow of blood, dripping through Jack's hands and pouring on to the table and floor.
He's cut her jugular. That much blood can only come from a main artery.
On the screen he can see Jack's body shaking as he tries to gulp back the sobs rising from deep within his chest.
Jack takes half a step back and Spider can now clearly see the blood all over Lu's neck and face. Jack slides his right hand under her armpits and his left hand behind her knees, lifts her up and holds her tight in his arms.
A disturbing thought hits Spider. His child. King has not asked about his child.
He glances down at the remote in his left hand.
Something's wrong. He can't have forgotten about his child and his wife.
On screen, Jack falls to his knees, Lu still held tight in his arms. It looks as though he's praying, holding her body and asking forgiveness for what he's done.
Suddenly, a beam of white light blazes across the floor and up into Spider's face.
'Armed police!' shouts a woman's voice. 'Stand up with your hands in the air. Do it, now! Or I'll shoot.'
Orsetta Portinari had ordered local police to keep a routine watching brief on La Casa Strada, just as she'd put similar surveillance on the crime scene in Livorno, the courier points at train stations in Milan and Rome and even the delivery-bay area at their own headquarters.
Her boss had demanded that the Italian investigation now be run entirely separately from the US one, and Orsetta was simply covering all bases and following up on her long-standing hunch that what connected BRK, Italy and America was Jack King himself. And as much as she hated the idea, the only way she could satisfy her curiosity with Jack out of the country, was through another unannounced meeting with his wife.
'Stand up, or I'll shoot!' she says a second time, acutely aware that although she's fully firearms trained, she's never fired a gun outside a range.
Spider slowly rises to his feet. 'All right. Okay. Don't shoot.'
The flashlight beam is bright but narrow. Orsetta can see his face clearly, but can only make out the vague shape of his shoulders.
In the darkness, she misses a crucial movement.
Spider puts his right hand on the edge of the marble, not to help himself to his feet, as she thinks.
But to pick up his automatic machine pistol.
In one hazy action, he sprays gunfire towards her.
Orsetta moves instinctively, but she's way too slow.
Her right shoulder burns with pain. The impact of the bullet spins her round and drops her to the ground, spilling her own weapon as she falls.
Spider is sure he's hit her several times. She looks motionless but he isn't yet convinced that she's dead.
There's time enough to kill her. He'll finish her off, with a shot through the head. For now though, she's not important.
Spider checks the computer again.
Where's King?
Still praying. Well, Jacky boy, no God known to man is going to save you now.
Without further delay, Spider presses the red trigger button and a thunderous explosion rings out.
86
Jack tightens his grip on Lu and prepares to make his move.
The fingers and palm of his right hand are bleeding intensely from where he cut across them with the kitchen knife as he pretended to fumble for the phone with his back to the camera. Jack knew he had to cut deep for the flow to be fast enough to paint a line of blood across the girl's neck as he faked the motion of cutting her. By cradling Lu in his hands, he was able to smear the blood everywhere and make it look as if she'd been fatally wounded.
Now, on his knees, he knows time is running out every bit as quickly as the blood haemorrhaging from his hand. In one deft movement, he dips his shoulder, falls forward and rolls himself and Ludmila as far underneath the heavy wooden bondage table as he can manage.
They're barely beneath the chrome-legged slab of oak when the explosion rips the room apart.
Jack smothers Ludmila with his big body.
Timber, brick and dust blow everywhere.
Rubble tears into Jack's exposed head and back, belting him like iron baseball bats, smashing his neck, his legs and spine.
He holds Ludmila tight and this time he really does pray.
Spider's computer screen goes grey.
The dust and rubble obliterate his view.
He grabs the laptop and holds it at a different angle, trying to get some kind of picture.
Where are they? I must see their faces!
Spider tingles with the electricity of expectation.
Where are their bodies?
He'd fixed the cameras in the basement in reinforced glass housings designed by film crews to withstand explosions and even train crashes.
He peers closely at the plasma screen.
Slowly, it fills with flames of vivid red and orange.
The fires of hell. May the flames consume King's stinking body.
Spider puts the computer down.
They're dead. King and the girl are dead.
Now I can finish off the policewoman and King's wife.
Spider looks over at Nancy, and then Orsetta. They're both lying down, curled up in near foetal positions.
Lambs to the slaughter.
He turns to pick up his pistol.
But he never makes it.
The first bullet hits him in the face.
His ears are still ringing with the sound of the gunshot when the second and third shots tear holes in his stomach.
Spider falls backwards, his head cracking against the tombstone.