Five paces and he's there.
It's not locked.
He shuts the door behind him. Quickly checks the phone again.
Still no signal.
The room is pale green, cobwebbed and bare. Three deep wooden shelves run around the walls. In years gone by it must have been a storage area of some kind. There's a small window but it's barred from the outside. He can see trees through the dirt.
Tom figures he's in an old storeroom, or laundry, maybe two floors up. A place for dumping dirty bedding and distributing new sheets and towels.
A glance beneath the bottom shelf confirms his suspicions.
A laundry hatch.
He doesn't know where it goes, or whether he'll be able to fit in it.
The cover is pinned with nails. Big ones.
He hunkers down beneath the shelf and tries to pull a corner off, then remembers the Swiss Army knife he took from the guard. The blade is sharp enough to whittle out wood around a nail head. The slide-out screwdriver strong enough to get a little leverage.
It's a struggle.
But he gets there. The nail in the top corner comes away. He forces two, three fingers behind and tugs.
Slowly the plywood bends, then splits diagonally across the middle. Tom tosses the broken part and pulls on the pinned remains. Splinters stick into his skin. Jagged edges cut his flesh, but he keeps straining.
He falls backwards as it comes away.
Voices outside. The clunk of the iron gate. Footsteps.
A black hole faces him.
Unhesitatingly, Tom slips into it. Unaware of where it goes, or whether he's going to be able to get all the way through and reach the bottom.
The drop is not at all what he imagined.
It's sheer.
Deep.
Over in seconds.
What saves him from serious injury is that the laundry chute is as securely nailed at the bottom as it was at the top.
His six-foot-three-inch frame hits the board in total blackness. Jars both his ankles and knees but breaks his fall.
The backs of his thighs are ripped raw by the splintered wood as he tumbles out of the hole and drops three feet into a crunching heap on the ground.
Tom lies still for a second. Takes stock of the damage.
Everything hurts.
Nothing has escaped either the jolt of the surprise impact or the brutal scraping of the splintered and jagged wood.
He gets to his feet. Hobbles. Feels a burning in his right ankle. Twisted. Sprained. But not broken.
His eyesight is still blurred. Hazy, but better.
The room is big and open. Two windows. Both barred – just like the ones in the room where he'd been held.
At the far end – a door. Closed. Maybe locked. Maybe not.
He looks for the cellphone. It dropped from his hand when he fell through the chute. He hopes it's not broken.
He bends down and sees straight away -
– a signal!
He grabs it and hits Valentina's number.
Misdial!
He tries to clear it and start again.
The screen floods with a menu in Italian offering a camera, games, text messaging, calendar and a dozen other things that he doesn't want. He struggles to get back to just the dial function.
An internet browser pops up.
Internet on a damned phone!
He finally dials Valentina.
She answers within three rings.
'Pronto.' Her voice is cautious, no doubt because of the unrecognised number on her display.
'Valentina, it's Tom.'
'Tom?'
'I don't have long. I don't even know where I am. I've been drugged and held hostage.'
'Wait, Tom! Wait!' She looks across the office to Francesca. 'Get a trace on this call. Quick! It's from a cell. Get a GPS lock on it straight away.'
A noise outside the room makes him back into the corner.
Tom hears voices now. He knows they're closing in on him. He can't talk any longer.
He places the phone on the floor to free his hands, but leaves the call connected.
The door bursts open.
Two people rush in.
He recognises one of them straight away. The one pointing a gun straight at his head.
CHAPTER 76
Mera Teale is dressed in full Satanic robes.
Not even Christian Lacroix could have designed a garment more sensuous than her silver-lined black alba. Though the Glock in her hand seems an excessive fashion accessory. Tom notes it's in her left hand. For a split second he remembers Carvalho's description in the morgue of how Monica had probably been killed by a left-handed person.
A male acolyte steps towards Tom. 'Hold out your hands.'
Eyes glued to the gun, he does as demanded.
The black-hooded disciple loops a sturdy plastic tie around Tom's wrists and begins to thread the end into the locking hoop.
It provides the split-second distraction that Tom needs. He breaks his hands apart, grabs the guy's arm and swings him like an Olympic hammer towards Teale.
There's a deafening roar.
Blood splatters Tom's face. The window behind him splinters.
Teale's shot has gone straight through the acolyte's chest. Tom drops to the ground. Sweeps a left-footed kick at the side of her knee.
She goes down like a snapped cane.
The gun drops free. He grabs it and glances at the barred window. Maybe, just maybe, he can use his weight and force his way through.
There's no hesitation in his run. He hits the centre of the window with a deafening crash. The old wooden frame buckles. The central iron bar slams into his shoulder and pain roars through the side of his head.
The strength of his leap and the weight of his body have broken the top of the bar free from the concrete lintel and it's given way, but the bottom of the bar has held firm.
He's stuck there.
Stranded.
Half in, half out of the window.
He glances back. Two other black-caped figures are now in the room and they have guns.
Tom raises Teale's Glock and pulls the trigger.
His shots are wide and wild. They zing across the walls but don't hit anyone. But they buy him enough time to twist around on the iron bar and heave his weight down on the metal.
It jerks and bends, then finally gives way.
He tumbles backwards and hits the ground with a thud that thumps the wind out of him.
Glass is stuck in his face. His shoulder is ripped and bleeding.
And he's dropped the gun.
The grass around him is long and time to search dangerously short.
He has no choice but to leave it.
CHAPTER 77
Getting a GPS check on Tom's whereabouts seems to take an age. These things always do. Only in films do techies work at warp-speed 9. In real life, time drags like a leg with a bullet in it.
Vito stays in the incident room while Valentina, Rocco and Nuncio finally get on the move. He's already mobilising troops and issuing weapons by the time Francesca Totti gets a fix on Tom's position.
'Lazzaretto Vecchio?' Vito repeats it like it's a curse. 'And all this time we've been so focused on Isola Mario. I should punch myself.'
Valentina can still hear him mumbling as her Carabinieri patrol boat kicks up a break of white water and roars away from its berth. Despite Tom's call for help part of her mind is preoccupied with Bale's painting.
Every brushstroke is branded into her memory.
The use of Roman numerals to spell out the word Venice over all three sections of the canvas is what's worrying her. She and Vito are both sure it means three locations – including Venice itself – are going to bear the brunt of whatever evil Bale has been orchestrating. Their best guess is that Venezuela is the second target, but what about the third?
The speedboat pulls left and Valentina lurches violently to her right. The shock seems to do her good. Like a cure for hiccups. Her disparate thoughts all come together and she comes up with a third location – Muscle Beach, Venice – the Californian hotspot where bodybuilders work out and pose. She ducks low from the wind and engine noise, cups her hand over the cellphone and calls it in. 'Major, the third target is not here, it's California – I'm sure of it. Muscle Beach, Venice. That's why those big cubes are there on Bale's painting, they're building giant muscle, not giant buildings.'