The Venice Conspiracy

by Jon Trace

  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.

  Syringe seven - more potassium chloride.

  Syringe eight - another saline flush.

  Bale’s voice is now only a low growl: ‘I am one of many. We will infest your bodies, pollute your children. We will nest cancers in your grandchildren.’ Incredibly, Bale raises his head. His eyes bulging, his stare fixed on the watching press. ‘When you lie on your death-beds - know this - I wait for you in hell.’

  Behind the glass a woman gets to her feet in tears and rushes to the exit.

  The team leader looks across to McFaul. ‘Tray A is finished, Governor.’ He nods towards the ECG machine. It still shows a strong heartbeat.

  McFaul can’t believe it. ‘Repeat protocol. Use Tray B with the back-up catheters - and make it damned quick.’

  Salto Angel, Venezuela

  The explosion can be heard for miles.

  A mushroom cloud can be seen way beyond the long-deserted Canaima National Park where the bomb was placed.

  A crater has opened up at the favourite viewing spot for tourists, the place where millions of cameras have immortalised what the locals call parakupa-vena, kerepakupai merú - ‘fall from the highest point’.

  The bomb had ticked down all night.

  Detonating at 8.33 a.m. local time, 6.03 San Quentin time. It had been set by a fanatic who’d forgotten to check the accuracy of their own watch. Had history been made it would have been late.

  A cloud of dust swirls endlessy in the powder-blue sky, but no one’s injured.

  Not even the wildlife.

  In the distance, the largest waterfall on earth continues in its mesmeric beauty, not a drop even shaken by the events around it.

  06.12.00 California

  San Quentin

  Eight more syringes.

  Bale is now unconscious.

  All eyes are on the ECG.

  The ink keeps flowing.

  Shallow mountains across the paper.

  He’s close to death.

  But still alive.

  No execution has ever taken this long. No murderer proved so hard to kill.

  A beep.

  ‘Flatline!’ The attendant shouts.

  The injection team can’t help but smile.

  McFaul sees people behind the goldfish glass clapping and cheering. It takes all his professionalism not to join in.

  An independent physician moves in to pronounce the death.

  Gloved hands of attendants uncouple catheters and monitor leads.

  The doctor puts a stethoscope to his ears and leans over Bale’s bare chest.

  Fluids still slosh inside the corpse. Strange subterranean sounds of chemical death.

  A long grumble of air rumbles up from deep inside his intestines.

  For a moment it sounds like a voice. Like a sinister whisper in a foreign language. The language of the dead.

  The doc feels a shiver, then looks up.

  ‘The inmate has passed. Time of death should be recorded as 6.13 a.m.’

  EPILOGUE

  I

  Ospedale Civile di Venezia, Venice

  They stitch Tom’s hand wound and strap his sprained ankle, but because of the head injuries they insist on keeping him in overnight. It’s not what he wanted. Not after his nights of incarceration in the Plague Hospital.

  To make matters worse, the TV in his room spouts nothing but news about the thwarted bomb attack in Venice. So far the media haven’t joined up the international dots, but Tom knows they will, it’s only a matter of time.

  Somewhere in the early hours he leaves his bed and asks a nurse how Tina Ricci is.

  He finds her just a door down - almost the same distance away as when they were both imprisoned. She’s conscious, staring at the ceiling, lost in her own thoughts as he slowly approaches her bed.

  ‘Hi there,’ he says gently. ‘How you doing?’

  It takes her a second to realise who’s talking. ‘I’m okay.’ She squirms a little in her bed, and can’t quite hide her embarrassment. ‘And you?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ He moves closer to her. ‘I won’t stay. I just wanted to see how you were.’

  ‘You don’t look so fine.’ She glances pointedly at the bandaged hand and ankle.

  ‘Cuts and bruises. I’ve come off sports fields with worse.’

  She can see a thousand unasked questions in his eyes. Questions about them. Questions about her part in everything. ‘Tom, they made me write that piece that was in the newspapers. I went to that commune on Isola Mario to do a story and that bitch Mera made me write it. Then they took me to that other awful place.’ She looks close to tears. ‘They made me, Tom, look . . .’ Tina tentatively draws back the bed sheets, revealing a mass of burns on her legs.

  ‘My God. What did they do to you?’

  She covers up. ‘A poker. Nothing special. Just a hot poker in a fire, like you see in B movies.’ She stretches out a hand to him. ‘They’ve given me a sedative, I think I’m going to doze in a second. Sorry.’

  ‘No need to be. Get some sleep.’ He squeezes her fingers. ‘Let’s talk later, when both of us feel stronger.’

  ‘For sure.’

  He lets go and heads for the door.

  Tina wants to say something more but doesn’t. Sleep is washing up over her and she can’t find the energy to fight it.

  II

  Tom doesn’t go back to bed. He’s been laid out on his back too much in recent times.

  He hobbles a while, then sits and watches the sunrise from beneath a blanket in a chair next to his window.

  He gets to thinking about where he’ll go next and whether he should make the journey alone, or not. Much of it will depend on Tina’s full explanation, and what her plans are.

  Dawn starts as dull and grey as iron filings.

  Then Venice remembers it has a reputation to keep up and pulls out radiant robes of golds, purples and shimmering reds before settling for a simple outfit of cornflower blue.

  Vito Carvalho and Valentina Morassi arrive while Tom’s cradling an espresso so thick he could almost chew it.

  ‘How you doing, Father?’ Vito grins mischievously.

  Valentina plays along, ‘Ex-Father!’

  ‘I’ve been better.’

  ‘And you will be again. Very soon.’ She leans over and kisses him.

  ‘If you don’t mind, I won’t do that,’ jokes Vito, offering a handshake.

  They settle in chairs alongside his bed and give him a bullet-point debrief: Bale’s execution went ahead as planned. Tom’s old friend Alfie is okay, is in Venice and is desperate to see him. Antonio’s funeral is fixed for five days’ time, a full military service, and they’d like him to come. Forensics have pulled together damning evidence from the boathouse on Lazzare
tto Vecchio, including finding traces of Monica Vidic’s blood in the gondola along with hair and skin from Ancelotti and Teale. The paint flakes on Monica also match the gondola.

  Some things need longer explanations, like why Mario Fabianelli is still a free man.

  ‘Totally innocent,’ says Vito. ‘He wasn’t involved at all, he just got manipulated by Teale and Ancelotti.’

  ‘Teale had become obsessed with Bale,’ explains Valentina. ‘During the years when Mario was off his head on coke she even visited Bale in prison. Like lots of other weird losers, she fell for his charm and mind games.’

  ‘Teale and Ancelotti were romantically involved too,’ adds Vito. ‘Initially, she got him into it just to spice up their sex lives. Then they became hooked on abducting and killing victims like Bale and his cult had done. We believe they selected their prey from local churches. Then when Mario had his muddled idea of a hippy haven, they seized on it and encouraged him. It was the perfect vehicle for them to recruit cult members while pretending to do Bale’s bidding.’

  Tom’s almost afraid to voice his next question. ‘And Antonio - your cousin - he just stumbled into all this?’

  Vito answers for her. ‘It seems that way. Antonio was under orders to search the grounds for drugs, and that meant him going to all the places that were off limits. We know now that the mansion and grounds were covered by more cameras than a Big Brother house. We think Ancelotti picked him up on surveillance and had his boat rigged with explosives.’

  Seeing the pain in Valentina’s eyes, Vito swiftly changes the subject: ‘Your old prison pal, Bale, put messages in his pictures and got an unsuspecting group of do-gooders to advertise and sell them on the internet in aid of charity. Teale and others then went online and decoded the symbols and clues. They were all part of a mystical, secret society that spread across the globe, hence the attacks in Venezuela and Vegas. In truth, we don’t know exactly how far it spread or how many were involved.’

  Tom puts down the last of his coffee and hitches himself up the bed. ‘Why did Bale have such an obsession with Venice?’

  ‘Well,’ begins Valentina, ‘we called the FBI after you told me about him, and they’ve been digging out everything on him since he was born.’

  ‘Born in Venice, California,’ adds Vito. ‘The illegitimate son of a former Catholic nun called Agnese Canaletto who died in childbirth, he was brought up in a Catholic orphanage and adopted by a family called Bale when he was four years old.’

  Tom’s memory flashes a picture of the Canaletto painting Rosanna Romano had given him the night she’d died. He’s still thinking of its significance as Valentina picks up the tale. ‘Bale was told of his upbringing by his adoptive parents, who probably meant well, but from an early age he harboured an obsessive hatred of all things Catholic and Italian. The FBI psychologists believe this led to him seeking to destroy as much as he could of the Church and anything symbolically Italian.’

  ‘Symbolism and evil are powerful combinations,’ says Tom, ‘especially when you’re dealing with loners who have disturbed childhoods. What happened to the silver artefacts - the Tablets of Atmanta?’

  ‘Under lock and key in the Carabinieri safe,’ says Valentina, lifting a fruit bowl up from beside the bed.

  ‘Safe from both the Church and the Satanists. We’ll work out what to do with them later,’ adds Vito. ‘They’re in two safes, actually.’

  ‘Two?’ queries Valentina, picking herself some grapes.

  ‘It’s not that I’m superstitious,’ says Vito, ‘but I didn’t want the three tablets lying together. I thought it best to keep them apart.’ He throws up his hands. ‘I know, they should be in three separate safes, but I only have two.’

  They all laugh.

  They’re still laughing when the door opens.

  Tina is surprised to see people sitting either side of Tom’s bed. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had visitors.’

  ‘Come in,’ says Tom, warmly. ‘They’re not visitors, they’re my friends and former employers. Valentina I’m sure you’ll recognise.’ The two women just about manage a smile in acknowledgement. ‘And this is her boss. And right now they’re going to kindly leave my fruit alone and get themselves some breakfast.’ He turns to Vito. ‘And while you’re doing it, maybe you could swing it for me to leave this hospital bed and get out of here, ASAP?’

  ‘We’ll see what we can do,’ says Vito, rising from his seat and nodding good day to Tina.

  Valentina gives her an icy stare as she passes. ‘Don’t eat all the grapes while we’re gone.’

  Tina waits until the door closes and then looks across to Tom. ‘Is this a good time to talk? Or do you want me to come back?’

  ‘No, this is good,’ says Tom with a smile. ‘In fact, it’s just perfect.’

  III

  Los Angeles

  Six thousand miles from Venice, a young Californian woman sleeps deeply in a hospital bed identical to Tom’s.

  Cristiana Affonso is lucky to be alive.

  The doctors say she bled so heavily during the operation they almost lost her.

  The girl’s mother, Gillian, is at her bedside. She holds her teenager’s hand and wipes strands of brittle hair from her troubled face.

  Poor girl has had to put up with so much. And when she wakes, a whole world of new troubles awaits her.

  The newborn in the glass crib next to Gillian moves his tiny arms; a nervous twitch, the sort of shake that prompts old folk to joke that someone walked on your grave.

  Gillian Affonso lets go of her daughter’s fingers and leaves her grandchild to twitch in his sleep. She’s going to find the hospital chapel. Somewhere she can kneel and pray. Ask for guidance.

  Before she leaves the bedside, she reaches around the back of her neck and unclips a gold cross given to her at her own First Communion. She puts it around her daughter’s neck and kisses her. She hopes it’ll protect her for the rest of her life.

  She looks back as she reaches the door to the hospital corridor. It’s strange that the baby hasn’t cried. The doctors noticed that too. All babies cry. But apparently not this one. He entered the world without so much as a mutter. His eyes wide and confident. Like he’s been through it all before.

  There are other strange things as well.

  Grandma Affonso doesn’t want to pick her grandson up. She feels no instinctive urge to cradle him, love him or kiss him. It makes her feel guilty. Not only guilty - slightly afraid.

  Maybe it’s because the birth was so traumatic.

  Maybe it’s because she’s frightened of hurting him.

  No - that’s not it.

  Deep down she knows the real reason. It’s because her grandchild is the son of the man who raped her daughter.

  The man a priest killed in an alley in Compton, almost nine months ago.

  Acknowledgements

  Huge thanks to David Shelley, who encouraged me to write long before anyone else ever did. David, it’s a pleasure to finally deliver a book for you! Much gratitude to all at Little, Brown for their faith, help, support and advice, especially Nikola Scott, who did the heavy lifting with my early stuff and provided much inspiration. But for the eagle eyes and smart suggestions of Thalia Proctor and Anne O’Brien, the final drafts would have been considerably poorer.

  Immense appreciation to my usual helpers - Luigi Bonomi, still holder of the World’s best Agent Award, international agents Nikki Kennedy and Sam Edenborough at ILA, who work so tirelessly and enthusiastically across the globe and ‘Scary’ Jack Barclay, the only accountant I’ve ever managed to have a laugh with.

  I’m exceptionally grateful to Guy Rutty, Professor of Forensic Pathology, East Midlands Forensic Pathology Unit, University of Leicester for his guidance and patience - any minor deviations from fact are down to me and not him.

  666 BC - Fact and Fiction

  Best I come clean.

  Some Etruscan details are made up.

  Total fibs. Absolute fabrication. Not many of t
hem - but some.

  There was no city of Atmanta. And, thankfully, absolutely no Gates of Destiny.

  Time-wise, I’m also guilty of cheating (a little). While everything I describe in the passages on Teucer and Tetia (these were genuine Greek/Etruscan names, by the way) are accurate, it is far more likely that the fully evolved settlement and society in which they lived would not quite have existed in 666 BC. It was a tad too early for towns with regular road layouts like the cardo and decumanus, the architectural sophistication of the temple that is built in the curte, the large-scale figurative sculpture that is described and the advanced level of sea trading that is depicted. Some of these things would probably not have been established for another hundred years or more. Other detail is more reliable - such as the roles of the netsvis (sometimes referred to as a haruspex) the divination of livers, the worshipping of a pantheon of gods headed by Uni, Tinia and Menrva and the herbal medicines applied by Larthuza the Healer. The Liver of Piacenza is of course a genuine artefact and is so prized it is under high-security protection in Italy.

  So why didn’t I just accurately describe what life was really like in 666 BC? Truth is, very little is known about this particular time, and certainly not enough to paint a vibrant pre-Venice landscape in which to set the Satanic legend that I had in mind. I also wanted to nudge the historic timeline towards the point where the Etruscans were entering their most powerful (pre-Roman) and most ambitious phase. At their height, they were one of the most evolved and civilized peoples across the world, and for many years even the Romans were reluctant to engage them in battle. Indeed, many of their rituals and practices were subsquently adopted by the Romans and as a consequence filtered through to much of the rest of the world.

  I was very kindly and patiently assisted in my research by Dr Tom Rasmussen, Senior Lecturer and currently Head of Art History at the University of Manchester. Tom is a world expert in Etruscan archaeology with a particular insight into its art and material culture, so you’ll see his direct influence both in the shape of Pesna’s more cultured pleasures and of course Tetia’s trade as a sculptress and the subsequent creation of the Tablets of Atmanta. The Etruscan era is an immensely difficult one to research - mainly because few texts from the times have survived and the Etruscan language is particularly different to any other ancient language. So, unlike ancient Egypt, where there are numerous texts and papyri to fall upon, Etruscan scholars have to rely much more on artefacts, archaeology and the wisdom of those who interpret them.