Michael Morley - The Venice conspiracy

'Cuff him again,' instructs Tiffany, 'we're ready to take him back to his cell.' The big guard smiles in Bale's face. 'If it was me, I'd stick the needle right in your eye and it'd take me until Thanksgiving to inject enough chemicals to put you to sleep.' He glances at his watch. 'One hour, you piece of shit, one hour's all you've got left.'

Lazzaretto Vecchio, Venice Mera Teale no longer looks or feels quite as sexy as she did a few hours ago. The Satanic deaconess is bleeding, bruised and soaked from her dip in the boathouse water, the place where she and Dino Ancelotti took so many innocent lives.

Valentina has no time for the protocol of a courteous and judicious interrogation. She walks the handcuffed Teale outside the boathouse, away from everyone else. 'So here's how it goes. Either you tell me everything you know, or I put a bullet through your head and make it look like you were escaping.'

Teale smiles. 'You really are as sexy as fuck when you're mad. I wish I had my camera right now.'

Valentina holds Teale's shoulders and expertly back-kicks her to her knees. Within a flash she has her Beretta drawn and pushed into the floored Satanist's mouth. 'I swear to Christ I will kill you if you don't start helping me.'

Whether it's the taste of gunmetal between her teeth or the look of sheer rage in Valentina's eyes, Teale is persuaded it's time to cooperate. Her eyes signal total submission.

Valentina drags her to her feet and re-holsters the weapon. 'So, tell me.'

Teale's lost her arrogance now. 'I don't know much. Just that there are bombs.'

'Bombs?'

'One at the Ponte della Liberta. Another in Venezuela at Angel Falls. And one in America. At the Venetian – the hotel in Las Vegas.' A twitch of a smile touches her lips. A reminder of the old Teale. 'You're too late to stop them.'

Valentina's in shock. She's made a terrible mistake. It's not Muscle Beach in Venice. She calls it in to the control room and prays they can warn the Americans in time.

Carvalho's instructions to clear and close the Ponte della Liberta are relayed at lightning speed.

But Italians are not good at doing things in a hurry.

By the time the major gets there, the roadway is still jammed with tourists. The more his men try to hurry them, the more tempers break, horns sound and everything grinds to a halt.

The bridge, opened by Mussolini in 1933, is more than three kilometres long and has no emergency lanes. It is Venice's only road connection to the village of Mestre and beyond it, mainland Italy. Known as 'the Freedom Bridge', Vito supposes Bale picked it because it signifies his own imminent freedom from prison.

Vito gazes out along the perfectly rectilinear bridge and its two hundred and twenty-two arches. He remembers being told at school that it was specifically designed so it could be rigged with explosives and blown up, with the intention of leaving attacking armies stranded on the mainland. There's no telling the extent of the damage Bale's explosion is going to have. Vito knows he can't search every arch in time.

Search teams have been concentrated at both ends – the places he suspects detonators may be rigged.

He's now at the northern section, the San Guiliano access point, just before where the SR11 forks right into the SS14 and left into the Via della Liberta.

Rocco Baldoni appears from a small boat looking absolutely terrified. The bottom of his grey trousers are soaking wet. 'We've found the charges! Explosives rigged to a timer set in the third arch down from the water's edge.'

Carvalho still has his eye on the long tail of traffic. 'What's it look like?'

'Complicated. It's a sealed unit, with a digital clock and key-pad trigger.'

'Motion sensors? Pick-up switches? Power loops?'

Rocco wipes sweat from his forehead. 'Maybe, but I didn't see any. It's high-tech. Looks as if it's been in position for a while.'

'And it's ticking?'

'It's ticking. Display shows fifteen minutes and counting.'

'Where's the bomb squad now?'

'On their way. But, Major, they're coming from Padua, they'll never make it.'

Vito looks at his watch: 2.45 p.m. That means it's 5.45 a.m. in California. Fifteen minutes to Bale's execution. 'You know anything about defusing bombs?'

Rocco smiles. 'Only what I've seen on TV.'

Choices roll like dice in the major's mind. Can he hope the bridge clears in time? The device malfunctions? The bomb squad arrives and saves the day?

He knows he can't risk it.

'Show me, Rocco. Show me the damned thing for myself.'

Death Watch, North Block Rotunda, San Quentin, California They come quickly into the holding cell.

Bale says nothing.

Fears nothing.

He's been expecting them.

Big, leathery hands frisk him for a final time.

Metal cuffs click tight around his wrists. A jangling Martin chain loops noisily around his waist. Leg restraints clunk around his ankles. He can smell beer and tobacco on the bodies around him. A surreptitious smoke and jolt of Dutch courage before they set about their duties.

'Move the prisoner.' The voice is not a guard's this time, it's Governor McFaul's.

Bale smiles as he passes him.

Smiles every step of the way to the L-shaped Prep Room that adjoins the Lethal Chamber.

And he's going to keep on smiling, right through each and every one of his last minutes on earth. 'Madonna Porce!' Vito Carvalho has never seen a detonation device so high-tech and clean. 'There's no way of getting to the wires. The whole unit is sealed.'

'It needs a password,' observes Rocco, somewhat unnecessarily.

'Oh, really?' Vito answers sarcastically. 'You have one handy?'

Rocco looks stressed. 'I guess we have to guess.'

'You guess we guess? Thanks, bright spark. And if I get it wrong?'

'We're dead. Or you get another go.'

'Thanks.' He takes off his jacket and rolls up his sleeves. The armpits and back of his shirt are already soaked in sweat.

Perspiration runs off Rocco's head as he stares at the display. 'You usually get several attempts with electronic-key locks. It must be built to be deactivated as well as primed. Even bombers need to reset things.'

The digital display drops to show six minutes.

The space above the keypad allows for five numbers or five letters.

Vito doesn't say anything. He types in: 66666 and feels his heart hammer in his chest.

The display flashes – ERROR – then goes blank again.

Vito tries a word: SATAN.

The device beeps. A red light flashes.

He takes a deep breath and looks towards Rocco. 'What do you think that means?'

Rocco mops more sweat from his brow. 'It probably means you only have one last chance.'

One. Never has so small a number presented Vito with so big a problem.

Both men swallow hard.

The display drops to five minutes.

'Or perhaps no more chances,' Rocco adds.

Vito stares at the digits.

A shiver runs through him.

He's stuck.

Clean out of ideas.

From here on in, whatever he does is just a gamble. If the scene shocks Bale, he doesn't show it.

The gurney.

The two trays of syringes.

The eagerly waiting members of the hand-picked injection team.

The witnesses, like fish behind glass, open-mouthed in their viewing tanks.

Bale shows nothing but his smile.

He's shepherded into the anteroom and sits on the gurney. Swings his feet up like he's visiting the dentist, then lies down without a fight.

They secure him to its winged arms. Leather belts around his wrists and ankles. He feels like he's laid out on a horizontal crucifix.

Someone taps his forearm to raise a vein.