Michael Morley - Spider

Howie could feel Jack's pain and humiliation. 'That seems to be the top and bottom of it. Italy's a false trail, laid just for us. I'm sure he had a lot of fun laying it, a creep like him would, but his real action is Stateside, always has been, always will be.'

Jack's mind focused on the videotape. He knew the film was going to turn out to be more than a one-off publicity stunt. BRK would be planning something far more sinister as a sequel. 'The way things are stacking up, BRK's going to kill this girl any time soon and then leak video footage of her murder to the Western world's most hated news channel.'

Howie shared the same fear. 'You got it. And you know these fuckers, Jack, they show beheadings of Western hostages and any manner of atrocity; they'll probably be praying to Allah, or Mohammed, or whoever the hell it is, that something happens right in the middle of the fucking ratings sweeps.'

Jack let out a long sigh. 'What are you going to do now, Howie? I guess your hot-shot new boss Joey Marsh is all over this and will be wanting a multi-agency briefing asap?'

'You got it. Marsh is so attached to my butt that I may have to have him surgically removed. We need you over here, Jack; can you get out of your obligations to the Italians?'

Jack took a beat to think about the consequences. 'Marsh okay with that?'

'Yeah, more than okay. He suggested it even before me. It's all going to kick off again, and this time this friggin' BRK screwball is begging for us to come get him. You never know, buddy, he might just be about to make his one big mistake.'

Jack weighed up the possibilities. Howie could be right. If BRK was behind the video footage, then he was taking risks, and he would do that only if he was very close to killing again. It was a unique moment; never before had they been able to so accurately predict when the serial murderer was about to strike next. 'I'll sort it out with Massimo. I'll come,' he said. 'I don't know when the next flight from Rome to JFK is, but I'll be on it. Meantime, get yourself all over this Tariq guy, clamp his balls in a vice and squeeze so hard that they come out of his ears. He's got to know that what happens next isn't about TV, it's about someone's life or death.'

Friday, 6 July

Rome By the time Orsetta and Massimo arrived at their office, Jack was already en route to New York. The concierge at the hotel had managed to get him one of the few remaining seats on the 9.55 a.m. Lufthansa flight from Rome's Fiumicino airport. It wasn't going to be the best of journeys; Jack topped six foot and squeezing into Economy was one of his pet hates. To make matters worse, he had to change planes at Dusseldorf and make the last leg of the long haul also in 'cattle class'. Orsetta and Massimo learned all this from the various messages he left on their answerphones. Just before boarding, he'd called Nancy and told her where he was heading and not to worry if she didn't get calls at the times he'd promised. He'd been encouraged by how understanding she'd been. He also managed a brief chat with Massimo, during which he'd told him more about the breaking news on BRK and the reason why he had to leave so suddenly.

Orsetta sat in her boss's office leaning her elbows on his giant desk. They both cradled espressos and discussed their disappointment at Jack's departure.

Massimo resisted lighting a cigarette to go with his coffee, his new pledge to himself being not to smoke before lunchtime. He tapped the desk with his finger, as though he were banging ash from it. 'Orsetta, I am hoping that Jack is right and that the murder of Cristina Barbuggiani is just a cruel decoy, but it is not a risk we can afford to take. When Benito comes in, we must impress upon him that our own investigations must remain fully focused. I do not want everyone sitting back and thinking the ball is now in the Americans' side of the court. That might be a tragic mistake to make.'

Orsetta was ahead of him. 'I spoke yesterday to the murder squad in Livorno and they are a determined team. I know the officer in charge, Marco Rem Picci, and he is not the kind to allow anyone to relax and do nothing.'

'Good,' said Massimo, the tension of the case showing in his red-rimmed eyes. 'Almost every day now I have phone calls or e-mails from the Prime Minister's office, the Minister of the Interior, the head of the Polizia Scientifica, the Direzione Centrale Anticrimine della Polizia di Stato and even the damn Chief of Police wanting to know what progress we are making.' He threw his hands up to show his exasperation. 'Hopefully this development in America will take a little heat off us for a while.'

Orsetta finished her espresso and drank water to take the bitterness away. She wanted to press on with the case more than anyone else, this was the biggest investigation she'd ever been involved in, and as far as she was concerned, it was just starting, not winding down. 'I'd like to go ahead with the 3D reconstruction of the crime scene. Can you authorize payment and access?'

For some years, the Italian police had been nurturing the use of a sophisticated computer system that reproduced crime scenes with startling realism, recreating everything from the path of a bullet to the movement of a corpse.

'Call RiTriDEC and tell them to go ahead. I will have the paperwork with them by early afternoon,' said Massimo, referring to the special laboratory in Rome known as the Ricostruzione Tridimensionale della Dinamica dell'Evento Criminale.

Orsetta was a big fan of the system. It worked by devouring all the crime scene data available, everything from traffic-camera video footage to the measurements a pathologist might make during an autopsy. Once everything was fed in, it would recreate crime scenes in 3D pictures on giant video screens in a special theatre. Experts like Orsetta were then able to examine the pictures, almost like art critics, studying every screen pixel for a clue that might lead them to their killer.

Massimo called her to the other side of his desk. 'Benito has patched through an FBI feed of the video footage that Jack spoke about. I have it now on the computer.'

Neither of them spoke as they watched Tariq el Daher's report. Orsetta made notes and was the first to break the silence. 'Just because there's a copy of USA Today in that video it doesn't mean the location is in America. You can pick that paper up in a hundred places in Rome.'

'Or indeed on a plane landing in Rome,' added Massimo. 'Jack might be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I wish we could have discussed this with him.'

Orsetta nodded. She felt exactly the same way. As far as she was concerned, Jack King and the FBI were still ignoring the elephant in the room.

Montepulciano, Tuscany Montepulciano stood out against an early-evening sky as beautiful and mystical as a fortified medieval settlement drawn in a kid's book of fairy tales. From its lofty perch on a limestone ridge, six hundred metres above sea level, it watched majestically over Italy's magic kingdom of Tuscany.

Nancy King had briefed Paullina, her waitress-come-guide-for-the-day, to make sure the photo-happy Mr Terry McLeod got to focus his lens on every corner of the town. And Paullina had been as good as the promise she pledged to her boss.

First, she made him walk the last part of the famous Corso, which starts at Porta al Prato and winds its way for more than eleven kilometres up to the top of the town and the huge open square of the Piazza Grande. They took a late lunch in the open air at Trattoria di Cagnano, where Paullina made the mistake of insisting that he try the local vino de nobile. McLeod enthusiastically complied. He drank most of the bottle, along with a brandy to polish off a hearty plate of pasta and a slice of torte large enough to wedge open one of the town hall's giant doors.