'Got it!' confirms Vito Carvalho, feeling a surge of adrenalin. He puts the phone down and hands out the instruction to call the FBI. With luck they'll safely shift everyone from the sands of Venice Beach. The Venezuelan government has already been alerted and they've assured him the area around Angel Falls is being evacuated. Back home, he has every available man and woman out on the streets and waterways searching for anything suspicious. Collectively, law-enforcement offices across the world are winning the battle against Bale. But maybe too slowly.
Vito glances at his watch.
Almost midday.
Coming up to 3 a.m. in California.
A hundred and eighty minutes until Lars Bale is executed.
Just three hours to find out if they've all been panicking unnecessarily, or if their worst nightmares are about to come true.
CHAPTER 78
Lazzaretto Vecchio, Venice Tom can barely see.
The sun is so dazzlingly fierce he can't look up from the ground. His ankle is swelling fast and buckles every time he tries to sprint.
He hobbles away from the building and heads as quickly as possible into the forest ahead. He knows he can't outrun them, so he keeps altering direction, hoping to throw them off his scent.
Water!
A vast stretch of water in front of him. He's run out of anywhere to go. The lagoon stretches as far as he can see. There's a small boat by the shore, but he doesn't fancy his chances of being caught in it and stranded in the open water.
Tom heads off at another angle. Darts into a thicket of straw-thin cypress trees so tall they look as if they're sucking sunlight from the sky. He grits his teeth and hobbles quickly towards the biggest one he can see.
He gets a grip on a lower branch and manages to pull himself up into the layers of foliage.
It's a real giant. Sturdy branches shoot off all over the place and he's soon so high he can barely see the ground.
Across the lagoon in a shimmering haze he sees gondolas ploughing their channels, and distant domes of ancient buildings. A mile out from the shoreline waves are broken white by the bows of speeding Carabinieri patrol boats. The cavalry is coming!
A branch to one side of him cracks.
Then he hears the gunshot.
They know where he is.
Tom climbs higher.
A flash of Greek mythology enters his mind – the cypress was symbolic of death, grief and mourning. Come to think of it, even the Romans and Muslims planted them by graves. Just his luck to pick one to hide in.
Another shot rings out.
Buries itself into the trunk of the tree at his feet.
They're close. Too close for comfort.
A third bullet rips up through the dense green canopy. A branch to his left collapses. They're adjusting their aim. It's only a matter of time before someone hits him.
Tom swings a hundred and eighty degrees around the trunk of the tree. He glimpses the Carabinieri landing on the island. Tiny ants swarming towards the building where he was held. He pulls himself into the final branches of the cypress and sees his prison clearly now. They had him in some kind of hospital. Run-down, derelict. To the side of the buildings is a stack of what looks like a kids' bonfire.
Only that's not what it is.
It's a pyre.
A sacrificial pyre.
Tom's vision goes again. Even though the sun is now behind him, the sky is bright and it hurts to look without any shade. He blinks and tries to refocus.
Someone's lit the fire.
They're dragging something towards the stacked and smoking timber.
A human figure.
Automatic gunfire and single pistol shots canon through the woods. Tom drops down several branch levels.
Beneath him, two Carabinieri soldiers are exchanging volleys with black-robed gunmen.
The soldiers are out-muscled. They're matching basic Berettas against two Uzis coughing out six hundred rounds a minute.
A young Carabinieri soldier takes a round in the face.
The other officer drops the shooter with a single bullet, hits the ground and rolls away as machine-gun fire kicks up dirt exactly where he was.
It's one against one. But the Uzi is always going to win.
Tom drops another branch. He has a bird's-eye view of every move but can't do anything to help. He has no gun, only the iron bar from the window he jumped through.
The guy with the Uzi breaks position and begins a slow, circular route that will bring him up behind the soldier.
The Carabinieri officer hears something. Shifts into a kneeling position and turns sideward.
Tom has to double-take.
It's Valentina.
The gunman appears from the cover of some bushes at the foot of the cypress.
She's going to get ripped to pieces.
Valentina is oblivious to the killer just metres from her. She stands up and sweeps her weapon out in front of her, advancing slowly.
The Uzi is up and aiming at the middle of her back.
She'll be dead in a heartbeat.
Tom hurls the iron railing like a spear. It cracks against the gunman's skull and his burst of fire goes awry.
Valentina spins round. Pumps shots into her attacker's body. Moves closer. Gun outstretched. Another round makes his chest jump. Nothing's being taken for granted.
Tom slides down into the lower branches, 'Valentina! Don't shoot!'
She keeps her weapon at shoulder height, eyes sweeping east to west.
Tom lowers himself out of the last branches, drops to the floor, his ankle buckling again.
She sees him but says nothing. She's wired. Still in the kill zone. Incapable of reacting outside her training. She moves cautiously to the body and picks up the Uzi.
Tom bends close to the corpse and retrieves the rusty iron weapon. 'There are others,' he says, wiping blood and flesh from it on the grass. 'They're gathering at the back of the hospital. They have a fire there and – I couldn't see properly because of the smoke – but it looked like they were going to burn someone.'
'Stay here. I'll take care of it.' Valentina holsters her weapon and grabs her radio. 'I'll call it in, then come back for you.'
CHAPTER 79
Lieutenant Francesca Totti and her three-man team enter the old Plague Hospital with weapons raised.
A locally born history graduate, she's more than aware of the building's awful past. At least three of her ancestors died here. Another half-dozen perished in the watery journey to the Lazzaretto.
Francesca's radio is back on her belt after answering Valentina's alert.
Her team methodically clears the downstairs rooms. Two more units, following behind, take the upper floors.
At the eastern end of the corridors, Francesca hears voices. Dark shapes are moving in a courtyard beyond dusty windows. She holds her hand high to slow and quieten the troops behind her.
From their crouched positions they watch three black-hooded figures gather around a steel gurney from one of the wards.
Something's wrong.
Francesca can see the reflection of a large fire that must be crackling and spitting flames somewhere out of view.
The Satanists are wearing silver Venetian masks. Walking on a carpet of dead flowers. Reciting prayers.
Francesca sees no knives. No weapons of any kind. Despite the impending arrival of the Carabinieri there seems no trace of panic amongst them.
Everything's too low-key.
Like they're too late.
She waves one soldier around to a door on the right, another to an archway on the left.
On her signal they step forward in unison into the courtyard.
Guns drawn and aimed.
The Satanists immediately hold their hands up in surrender.
But there's still no panic. The air is filled more with comedy than tension.
Francesca moves to the gurney placed in the middle of them.