Spider

83

San Quirico D'Orcia, Tuscany The entrance floor of the catacomb is covered in soft soil but, after you walk about twenty feet through the narrow gap, the surface underfoot changes into hard rock, cinder and compacted earth. Spider shines his flashlight up the walls. They are damp and green from an underwater stream that dribbles down from the hillside above them. He is searching for the point where the narrow route dog-legs left and opens up into a much wider, high-ceilinged chamber dominated by a raised marble tomb. The air gradually loses its last vestiges of freshness, as they move deeper into the sterile darkness where nothing grows. Spider feels perfectly at home amid the dank smell of infertile land. The smell of death.

He pushes the woman and child to the back of the catacomb and forces them to sit with their backs to the tomb, which contains the remains of a soldier and his family from Medici times.

Little Zack, his hands still bound in front of him, crawls over to his mother and puts his head on her knees, desperate for protection and reassurance. Nancy's wrists are still tied viciously tight behind her back, but her real pain comes from being unable to comfort or touch her son. She bends her body over the top of him and rubs her face against his back, like an animal nuzzling her injured young.

Spider clicks his laptop off standby. It hums into life and instantly locks in on the hotel's wi-fihot spot, located almost directly above his head. He glides through Webmail and logs on to his own intranet system.

As the computer monitor fills with an overhead camera shot of Lu Zagalsky's body, he sees her face and shivers with anticipation. Not long now. Soon all that waiting will be deliciously rewarded. A tingle spreads from his neck, down the sweat forming on his spine.

He pulls Zack's young body away from his helpless mother, his eyes hardly ever leaving the image on the screen.

Spider senses death in the air.

Multiple death.