The Venice Conspiracy (38 page)

CHAPTER 85

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.

ERROR.

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.

His blue snakes slither treacherously from their pink blankets, greedy to suck up the poison.

His death-row shirt is deftly unfastened.

ECG pads are moistened and stuck with jelly to his chest.

Leads plugged to a monitor.

Needles and catheters appear at a magician’s speed.

Eight needles.

A sequence to be meticulously followed.

Bale appreciates the need for routine. Routine and ritual were always important to him, especially when
he
was taking a life.

A saline drip goes up.

A monitor beeps.

ECG graph paper crinkles.

Someone coughs.

The end is beginning.

A new beginning is only minutes away.

The timer on the detonator shows thirty seconds.

Vito Carvalho struggles to think of a new sequence.

Instinctively, he sifts away the unimportant.

Eliminates the unnecessary.

Hones in on the headline.

The one thing at the heart of it all.

The timer shows twenty-five seconds.

If he gets it wrong, then he, Rocco and hundreds of others will die.

He types the first digit.

Please God, look after Maria. If I die, then please make sure she is cared for and loved.

The second.

There are parents and children in cars on the bridge, please let them live.

The third.

Babies in carrier seats, kids listening to iPods, protect them, O Lord.

The fourth.

God forgive me for my sins. What I have done I have done in failure, not in malice. Forgive me my failings as I have forgiven others.

The fifth.

He’s mistyped!

The device clunks. The display shows five angles lines - / / / / /

The counter registers ten seconds - then suddenly jumps to zero.

Vito swallows.

The display flashes. It shows for the first time what he typed in -

H3V3N

It goes blank again.

Lights inside the unit fade.

The timer shuts down.

The bomb is defused.

Vito sighs with relief. Then instantly thinks of the other bombs.

They wheel Bale from the prep room into the execution chamber.

Jim Tiffany winks at the prisoner as he looks down at him and locks the gurney into position and steps away.

The curtains to the viewing rooms slide back.

Governor McFaul gives the signal.

A member of the injection team nods.

Needle One: 1.5 grams sodium thiopental.

Bale feels the chemical whoosh in.

It’s time to speak - say his piece before the barbiturates rob him of the power to do so.

‘I am a soldier of Lucifer, Lord of Darkness and the Bringer of Light. The author of true freedom.’

All eyes are on him. Wide, wide open. Dozens of them. Staring through the goldfish glass of the packed viewing rooms.

‘I am the way - the light - the truth.’

He pauses. Takes a breath. Struggles now to fill his lungs.

‘See me here in my finest hour as I do
his
bidding and unlock the Gates of Hell. Behold today my glorious ascension to his side and the wondrous destruction I leave behind as testament to him.’

Fast hands inject more sodium thiopental and a syringe of saline flush.

McFaul and his deputy governor exchange glances.

Bale should at least be unconscious - preferably dead - by now.

But he’s not.

Things are going wrong.

Las Vegas

The bomb goes off.

Rips out the windows of the new Medici Suite on the sixth floor of the Venezia Tower in the heart of the city.

Pieces of Roman tub, bedroom furniture and a fifty-inch plasma screen shower the sky like tickertape.

The room was the only one advertised with 666 square feet of luxury concierge-level space.

Despite protestations from the hotel management, the FBI got the place evacuated in lightning time. They rushed robots in to lay down armour-plated steel sheeting and then trigger the controlled explosion.

When the bomb went off the whole floor of the hotel was ruined. The casino may be closed for the moment, but the biggest gamble in the history of Vegas has paid off - no one has been hurt.

San Quentin

Syringe four - pancuronium bromide - injected.

Gloved hands work quickly.

Syringe five - saline flush - injected.

And still Bale is conscious.

And talking.

‘To the gawkers behind the windows, I say this: Watch me as I watch you, for one day soon I will judge you all, as you judge me.’ His mouth grows dry and he struggles even to lick his lips. ‘I will be there at your death to weigh your souls and know your worth.’

Syringe six - potassium chloride - injected.

A member of the injection team checks the intravenous lines, makes sure the death chemicals are running true.