Michael Morley - The Venice conspiracy

His time is coming.

He can see and feel a protective aura growing around him. It is violet – changing to white – and then gold. The colours of his divine mind. The colour of his pathway to immortality and his rightful place alongside his father.

Outside his cell it is clear that they have been busying themselves.

Restricted Access signs have been posted. Keys to the wing have no doubt been drawn.

Logs signed. Boy, do they love their paperwork. Soon the lethal-injection team will leave their homes after an uncomfortable night with family. They'll drive to work in their old cars, listening to the radio, one hand on the wheel, window rolled down, thinking about the life they have to take and how they're going to live with that. Easy for some. More difficult for others. They'll eventually gather together and sit stony-faced and solemn in an assembly room while they get their final briefing from the governor and deputy governor. Then they'll all be sworn in like good little scouts and will go away honour-bound to carry out their constitutional duty – to kill him.

Some will enjoy it. Some will be haunted by it.

He'll make sure none of them will ever forget it.

The poor souls – they have no idea what they're letting themselves in for. No clue just how historic a day today is going to be.

Carabinieri HQ, Venice Sickness, holidays and a family emergency in the cryptanalysis department in Rome mean Vito and Valentina have to wait overnight to get their code broken.

Valentina enters her boss's office with a sheet of A4 and a smile on her face as broad as the dome of San Marco's. 'It's so simple. So stupidly simple!' she moves to Vito's side of the desk and energetically slaps the paper down. 'It says Venice.'

'Venice?' He stares at the line of numerals – XXIV-VII-XVI-XI-V-VII

'How does it say Venice?'

'Look!' says Valentina, excitedly. 'V equals XXIV. E equals VII. N equals XVI. I equals XI. C equals V. Then we have the E again, VII.' Valentina almost breaks out laughing.

'Oh, so amazingly simple,' mocks Vito. 'Now why on earth didn't I get that straight away?'

'Okay, not that simple,' admits Valentina. 'Well, not to us, but it did make the cryptanalysts laugh.'

'Laughter in the crypt. I'm so glad.'

'Ha ha, very funny. Apparently it's a crude variation of the Caesar Cipher.'

'Caesar?'

'Yes, all the way back to old Julius himself. Apparently he used to write battle messages in a simple code whereby the letter he put down was represented by a different letter or number. The letter A, for example, would be represented by a C – that would be a two-shift cipher.'

Vito runs a finger across the code and the translation made by the analysts. 'But these aren't letters, they're numerals.'

'I know,' says Valentina. 'Bale has put his own twist on it. He's given each letter its numeric equivalent in the alphabet then applied the classic Caesar cipher of two, so A is not represented by a 1, it's represented by a 3, then he's converted the 3 into the Roman numeral III.'

Vito now appreciates its simplicity. 'And E itself is not a 5, it's 5 plus 2, which in Roman numerals equals VII.'

'Exactly.'

A rap on the door turns their heads.

Nuncio di Alberto enters, looking almost as pleased as Valentina has been. 'Mario Fabianelli may well have been telling the truth – it's possible that he doesn't know anything about that company of his in the Cayman Islands, or the purchase of the artefact.'

'How so?' asks Vito.

'Well, the forgery of his name on the company documents is very good – but just not good enough. Handwriting experts have now examined it and compared it to samples of documents we took from the billionaire's home. It doesn't match.'

'It doesn't? They're sure?'

'Positive. And there's more. While Fabianelli didn't know about the company or the purchase, his PA certainly did.' Nuncio flashes his own piece of paper. 'This is a copy of the insurance Mera Teale took out on the artefact, to the value of two million dollars. Teale always signed for insurance cover on all Mario's art, so there was no need for her to forge anything. In fact, in this case, it would look peculiar if anyone but her had signed.'

'Bene. This is real progress, but we still have no sightings of her, the lawyer Ancelotti or Tom.' Vito looks hopefully at Nuncio.

'I have heard nothing new. Rocco and Francesca told me they'd checked again with the Polizia – nothing there either.'

'Tom can't have just vanished from the earth,' says Valentina.

'He can,' says Vito ominously, 'if he's already dead.'

They've jacked enough drugs into Tom's veins to stock a pharmacy.

But they've not done it properly. His body's rejected the increased dosage and he's vomited back a lot of the chemicals. As a result, the sedative is wearing off much quicker than before.

He's still groggy, but far more aware of things.

His throat is viciously sore. His stomach growls like a frightened dog. His muscles cramp and ache. Behind the bandage, it feels as though burning grit has been glued to his pupils and lids.

Apart from that, he's fine.

The thought almost makes him laugh. Fine. Just fine. No doubt only hours from being sacrificially murdered, but just fine. He puts his remarkable calmness down to the lingering effects of the sedative. A blessing in disguise.

Lying on his back has given him plenty of thinking time. The way he figures it, Lars Bale has worldwide followers who are ready to mark his execution with a spree of violence that would have Satan himself dancing with joy.

It's going to be bloody.

So spectacularly gruesome that Bale will no doubt become even more infamous in death than he is in life.

A black saint.

Tom hears a key turn in the lock.

Decision time.

Is he strong enough?

Can he afford to wait any longer?

Does he have a choice?

The door swings open.

Tom hears it clunk shut. Someone's playing it safe.

A brief pause.

The key goes in the lock from inside his room.

Click-click closed. They're not taking any chances.

He hears a man cough, clear his throat a couple of times. Now start walking.

Clit-clat, clit-clat.

A single series of footsteps. One man alone.

Tom's heart races. He must decide.

Clit-clat, clit-clat.

Four more steps.

The jailer is just two steps away from him. If he remembers correctly, it's one step forward and to the left of him.

Clit-clat.

Tom waits a beat. Hears a click of metal and glass next to him.

A spike of more sedatives in a steel bowl close by.

One more second and he'll be jabbed again.

Two hundred sit-ups a day for fifteen years finally counts for something.

Tom sits bolt upright.

His bandaged head smashes into something hard.

A dull moan of pain from in front of him. He's butted the man's face, he's sure of it.

Tom follows the noise. Falls to his left. Tumbles from the bed. One knee smashes on the floor, the other into the lower torso of whoever lies the other side of him.

His limbs feel like rubber and his hands are still in plastic restraints.

He launches another head butt.

Useless.

His skull crashes into the top of the jailer's chest.

A fist slams into Tom's temple. Adrenalin shoots through his body.

It's what he needs. It neutralises the sedative. His fingers tingle, his senses sharpen.

Another blow thuds into his ear, makes it ring like crazy.

Tom daren't kneel up, the guy will wriggle free and be gone.

He smashes his cuffed hands in an uppercut to where he guesses the guy's balls are.

Bingo! Air whooshes out of a mouth somewhere above him.