Slowly the blackness becomes greyness and he can just about make out the basement door. He reaches down and feels the area around his feet.
His hand touches splintered wood.
Concentrate, Jack. Time is running out.
Jack wills all his feelings to the tip of his fingers.
Dirt, ground, wood, dust – metal.
Metal!
He has the knife.
He feels around for its blade.
Time, Jack. Time is running out!
Jack puts his hand down again.
No gun.
He can't find the gun.
He stops searching and pulls himself up and out of the broken stairway.
In front of him, only inches away, is the basement door.
And behind it, the life or death of Ludmila Zagalsky.
Jack takes a deep breath and fears that it might be the last one he ever draws.
If the door is wired, it's all over.
He crashes his shoulder against the wooden slab.
It doesn't move.
He dives deep into his reservoir of mental strength and powers his entire weight into his shoulder.
The door creaks.
Jack goes again.
He feels it move, but only fractionally.
'Aaargh!' screams Jack, as he drives all his weight and effort into the door.
The lock bursts and he falls headlong into the room. His hands and knees slide along the black plastic sheeting.
Jesus Christ! What is this? Where the fuck am I?
Jack stands up and sees the walls and ceiling are also lined with the black sheeting. It's as though he's suddenly tumbled into one of his own nightmares. And then he sees her. The naked, dying body of Ludmila Zagalsky, spreadeagled before him. The woman he's been instructed to kill. Spider makes no effort to chase after the child. Instead, his finger hovers over the button on the remote detonator, itching to trigger the electronic charges and blow the house to kingdom come.
He watches as Jack checks the girl's chains and smiles as he sees him discover that they're attached to thick, metal hoops that are screwed into the basement's concrete floor.
Four minutes gone.
Spider turns the detonator over and over in his hand.
Wait, Spider. It will be all the more special if you control yourself and wait.
'That's my knife, King,' he says jokingly as the light glints off the steel in Jack's hand. 'You really have no right to be borrowing things without my permission.'
Spider watches eagerly as Jack cuts through the leather restraints on Sugar's hands and legs.
He's not going to kill her; the fool is going to free her, just as expected.
He glances once more at Nancy and sees she's still unconscious.
'Wake up!' He'd like her conscious when he kills her. Maybe kills her at the same time he kills her husband.
Nancy's eyelids flicker. She has nice lips, he notices, nice and sweet to kiss as he sucks the last breath from her body.
He shuffles the remote in his hand. 'Wake up!' Spider pulls Nancy upright.
Her eyes open a fraction. Just enough for Spider to see that she's coming round, and for him to get his finger over the right button. Terry McLeod isn't about to be told what to do by some kitchen boy with a mop. He walks back through the hotel and then stomps his way to the fenced-off area marked Private.
Respect – kids today have no respect.
He reaches over the small gate, flips the catch and pushes it open.
Mrs King, I have to admit, I've not been honest with you. I am not actually a tourist, in fact I'm an internationally acclaimed travel writer and photographer, and I'm here to do a feature on your fine establishment. Now, I would just like to ask you a few questions.
McLeod rehearses his lines and is confident she will be putty in his hands – providing he can find her. The kitchen boy said he was certain she was in the garden, so in the garden she must be. He searches the orchard and the pretty herb area boxed off with clipped privet hedging.
Nothing.
Then he searches the vegetable garden, carefully making his way through the onions, tomatoes, cucumbers and radishes. He comes to the patch where the ground falls away. It isn't new to him; he'd spotted it through his binoculars as he'd settled into his rocky hide on the distant hillside, and he'd seen it close up when she'd discovered him prowling her grounds. But what he sees now shocks him to his core.
Down on the soil below him is the King child.
His mouth is bound with parcel tape. His hands are tied in front of him. And around his neck is a length of rope. Jack cuts the final restraint.
He knows he's reached the point of no return. Can he really do what's been demanded of him, and kill her? Will taking her life really save his son?
What choice is there?
The only thing that Jack is certain of is that his own life and that of the poor girl lying limply in front of him are now dangling on a thread.
Knowing that his every move is being watched, Jack turns slowly around, looking for a camera. He sees one almost at head height, on a wall to the right of him.
He pulls out the phone, flicks off the hold button and traps it between his shoulder and ear. 'Jones, can you hear me?'
For a moment there's silence, and Jack wonders if it's because the killer is surprised by hearing his real name being used.
'I hear you, Jack,' says Spider, looking down at his watch.
Four minutes and fifty seconds.
'You've got ten seconds to kill the girl.'
'The game's changed. Let me hear my wife and child, and then I'll kill this girl any way you want. I don't care about her, just let my family go.'
Spider studies Jack on the monitor and sees desperation etched into every line on his face.
Could he really kill her? Maybe, just maybe. The love of a parent is so strong; it's possible that he'll do anything, even kill the woman he's been trying to save, just to have a chance of keeping his son alive.
'Listen closely,' says Spider. He yanks the tape from Nancy's mouth and holds the cell phone close to her as he grabs a handful of hair and pulls it out in one vicious tug.
Jack winces as he hears Nancy scream. He feels another rush of adrenaline and anger inside him. 'Now my son. I want to hear my son.'
Even though he knows he's gone, Spider instinctively glances across the darkness of the catacomb. 'No deal, King. Get on with it. Or the next thing you'll hear down this phone is the sound of me killing your wife, then you'll hear your son, you'll hear him screaming under my knife.'
Jack drops the phone.
Do it now! he tells himself. He fumbles around on the black plastic-covered floor, seemingly taking an age to pick up the phone. Nothing, nothing in the world matters to him as much as the lives of his wife and child.
Jack stares into the camera, his eyes brimming with hate, his mind throbbing with fear and confusion.
He walks around to the far side of the bondage table so the camera can clearly see both him and the girl.
Do it! This is your only chance to keep them alive.
Spider leans closer to the monitor.
Jack uses his left hand to brush hair from Lu's neck and then he tilts her head back. 'God, please forgive me for this,' he says. Slowly, he draws the razor-sharp kitchen knife in a bloody cut, straight across her throat.
Spider's face is only inches from the monitor screen but he still can't believe what he sees. He gasps as the reality of what has happened sinks in.
Jack King has cut her throat.
The blood is flowing. It's all over him. He's cut her throat. McLeod scrambles into the crater beneath him and rushes to the child.
Mary Mother of God, who could do something like this?
'It's okay, son, don't worry. It's all going to be all right.'
The child's eyes are wide with panic. His face is crimson and McLeod can see his chest heaving as he struggles to breathe.
The sticky parcel tape
has been looped several times around the boy's mouth and is plastered to his hair. There isn't going to be any painless way of removing this. McLeod turns Zack around and searches for the end of the tape. He finds an overlap near the back of the youngster's right ear. He scratches at it with his fingernails until a flap lifts.
'Sorry, little man, this is going to hurt a bit.'
McLeod grips the child tight with his left arm and begins to pull the tape free. The first loop comes off easily because it is virtually doubled over itself but the final circle of tape yanks clumps of fine blond hair out of the back of the child's head. Zack's whole body jerks with pain as the tape is torn away.
McLeod holds him by his shaking shoulders and looks straight at him. 'Be brave, little guy, just a bit more and it'll be off your face.'
The kid is wild-eyed with fright and McLeod knows the best thing to do now is to get it over with as quickly as possible.
He puts one hand against Zack's face and peels off the last of the wide, heavy-duty tape.
Zack starts crying and gasping for air as soon as the tape comes free of his mouth.
'M-m-m-mommy!' he sobs and McLeod holds him tight.
Gradually the child's crying begins to subside and McLeod wipes his face and comforts him. 'It's okay, son. I'm going to get this nasty tape off your hands, and then we'll find your mom.'
'P-please help Mommy,' pleads Zack.
'Where is she?' asks McLeod, getting a finger hold on the tape around the youngster's wrists. 'Where's your mom?'
Zack nods towards the thin, black slit in the hillside and his body shakes some more. 'Mommy's in there.'
McLeod drags the last of the tape from the boy's wrists. His skin is red and tender but the hands and wrists don't seem damaged.
'I'm going to help your mommy, Zack,' he says, 'but first, we're going to make you safe. Okay?'
Zack is too scared to respond, his eyes never leaving the gap in the hillside.
McLeod hoists him into his arms and hugs him. Then, still holding him close, he heads back up the soil banking. It's a slow and clumsy climb as the earth shifts and slides beneath his feet.
Breathless, he makes it to the top of the crater and stands Zack up. 'Run to the house, kid! Run and get help.'
McLeod taps Zack on the bottom, and then the child runs as fast as he can towards the safety of the hotel kitchen. McLeod slithers back down the banking once more, determined to find Nancy King. Spider almost loses track of time as he stares at Jack cradling Lu's bloody head in his hands.
He still can't believe what he's just seen.
He hits a key on the laptop and the camera remotely zooms in on the heavy flow of blood, dripping through Jack's hands and pouring on to the table and floor.
He's cut her jugular. That much blood can only come from a main artery.
On the screen he can see Jack's body shaking as he tries to gulp back the sobs rising from deep within his chest.
Jack takes half a step back and Spider can now clearly see the blood all over Lu's neck and face. Jack slides his right hand under her armpits and his left hand behind her knees, lifts her up and holds her tight in his arms.
A disturbing thought hits Spider. His child. King has not asked about his child.
He glances down at the remote in his left hand.
Something's wrong. He can't have forgotten about his child and his wife.
On screen, Jack falls to his knees, Lu still held tight in his arms. It looks as though he's praying, holding her body and asking forgiveness for what he's done.
Suddenly, a beam of white light blazes across the floor and up into Spider's face.
'Armed police!' shouts a woman's voice. 'Stand up with your hands in the air. Do it, now! Or I'll shoot.'
Orsetta Portinari had ordered local police to keep a routine watching brief on La Casa Strada, just as she'd put similar surveillance on the crime scene in Livorno, the courier points at train stations in Milan and Rome and even the delivery-bay area at their own headquarters.
Her boss had demanded that the Italian investigation now be run entirely separately from the US one, and Orsetta was simply covering all bases and following up on her long-standing hunch that what connected BRK, Italy and America was Jack King himself. And as much as she hated the idea, the only way she could satisfy her curiosity with Jack out of the country, was through another unannounced meeting with his wife.
'Stand up, or I'll shoot!' she says a second time, acutely aware that although she's fully firearms trained, she's never fired a gun outside a range.
Spider slowly rises to his feet. 'All right. Okay. Don't shoot.'
The flashlight beam is bright but narrow. Orsetta can see his face clearly, but can only make out the vague shape of his shoulders.
In the darkness, she misses a crucial movement.
Spider puts his right hand on the edge of the marble, not to help himself to his feet, as she thinks.
But to pick up his automatic machine pistol.
In one hazy action, he sprays gunfire towards her.
Orsetta moves instinctively, but she's way too slow.
Her right shoulder burns with pain. The impact of the bullet spins her round and drops her to the ground, spilling her own weapon as she falls.
Spider is sure he's hit her several times. She looks motionless but he isn't yet convinced that she's dead.
There's time enough to kill her. He'll finish her off, with a shot through the head. For now though, she's not important.
Spider checks the computer again.
Where's King?
Still praying. Well, Jacky boy, no God known to man is going to save you now.
Without further delay, Spider presses the red trigger button and a thunderous explosion rings out.
86
Jack tightens his grip on Lu and prepares to make his move.
The fingers and palm of his right hand are bleeding intensely from where he cut across them with the kitchen knife as he pretended to fumble for the phone with his back to the camera. Jack knew he had to cut deep for the flow to be fast enough to paint a line of blood across the girl's neck as he faked the motion of cutting her. By cradling Lu in his hands, he was able to smear the blood everywhere and make it look as if she'd been fatally wounded.
Now, on his knees, he knows time is running out every bit as quickly as the blood haemorrhaging from his hand. In one deft movement, he dips his shoulder, falls forward and rolls himself and Ludmila as far underneath the heavy wooden bondage table as he can manage.
They're barely beneath the chrome-legged slab of oak when the explosion rips the room apart.
Jack smothers Ludmila with his big body.
Timber, brick and dust blow everywhere.
Rubble tears into Jack's exposed head and back, belting him like iron baseball bats, smashing his neck, his legs and spine.
He holds Ludmila tight and this time he really does pray.
Spider's computer screen goes grey.
The dust and rubble obliterate his view.
He grabs the laptop and holds it at a different angle, trying to get some kind of picture.
Where are they? I must see their faces!
Spider tingles with the electricity of expectation.
Where are their bodies?
He'd fixed the cameras in the basement in reinforced glass housings designed by film crews to withstand explosions and even train crashes.
He peers closely at the plasma screen.
Slowly, it fills with flames of vivid red and orange.
The fires of hell. May the flames consume King's stinking body.
Spider puts the computer down.
They're dead. King and the girl are dead.
Now I can finish off the policewoman and King's wife.
Spider looks over at Nancy, and then Orsetta. They're both lying down, curled up in near foetal positions.
Lambs to the slaughter.
He turns to pick up his pistol.
But he never makes
it.
The first bullet hits him in the face.
His ears are still ringing with the sound of the gunshot when the second and third shots tear holes in his stomach.
Spider falls backwards, his head cracking against the tombstone.
The fourth and fifth bullets splinter his ribcage and rip his heart to pulp.
Only when he is absolutely certain that the man is dead, does Terry McLeod drop the policewoman's Beretta. Howie Baumguard and the ESU team were still holding back when the blast went off.
Howie had figured that BRK was running the show from remote cameras and he didn't dare give a 'strike command' that might endanger the lives of Jack and Lu Zagalsky.
But after the explosion, all bets were off.
The ESU team works, as usual, from a Radio Emergency Patrol truck, but even basic REPs are perfectly equipped for sieges and small building blasts. As Howie rushes towards the scene of the explosion, the small arms troops are at his side, and the rescue unit is already unbolting a variety of tools from the truck, such as fire extinguishers, metal cutters and the kind of inflatable airbags that can be used to lift heavy weights off bodies.
Lead officers with high-powered search beams on their weapons go in first. Behind them come their armed cover and then the Extrication Squad.
At the first sight of flames, the ranks part and the guys with extinguishers lay down a blanket of foam.
Seconds later, when the gas boiler explodes, the heartbeats of the ESU team barely jump. It's something they'd been expecting.
Clouds of foam instantaneously smother the flames. There's no sign of panic. Howie Baumguard steps aside and calmly lets the experts do their work. He's seen the ESU magicians pull people out of mangled metal in multiple car crashes, bomb explosions and building collapses. They're the best. They've worked everywhere from the Oklahoma bombing to the hurricane in New Orleans. If anyone can get Jack and Lu out of this mess alive, it's them.
'Get some portable light in here!' someone shouts.
Through the flashlight, dust and plaster spins in the brick-coated red mist as expert eyes roam over the rubble.
Less than two yards from the door is a pyramid of timber and breeze block.
'More foam!' an officer shouts as a fire flares again near the doorway.
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