Michael Morley - The Venice conspiracy

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.

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.'

'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.

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.