The Venice conspiracy

CHAPTER 84

Carvalho's instructions to clear and close the Ponte della Liberta are relayed at lightning speed.

But Italians are not good at doing things in a hurry.

By the time the major gets there, the roadway is still jammed with tourists. The more his men try to hurry them, the more tempers break, horns sound and everything grinds to a halt.

The bridge, opened by Mussolini in 1933, is more than three kilometres long and has no emergency lanes. It is Venice's only road connection to the village of Mestre and beyond it, mainland Italy. Known as 'the Freedom Bridge', Vito supposes Bale picked it because it signifies his own imminent freedom from prison.

Vito gazes out along the perfectly rectilinear bridge and its two hundred and twenty-two arches. He remembers being told at school that it was specifically designed so it could be rigged with explosives and blown up, with the intention of leaving attacking armies stranded on the mainland. There's no telling the extent of the damage Bale's explosion is going to have. Vito knows he can't search every arch in time.

Search teams have been concentrated at both ends – the places he suspects detonators may be rigged.

He's now at the northern section, the San Guiliano access point, just before where the SR11 forks right into the SS14 and left into the Via della Liberta.

Rocco Baldoni appears from a small boat looking absolutely terrified. The bottom of his grey trousers are soaking wet. 'We've found the charges! Explosives rigged to a timer set in the third arch down from the water's edge.'

Carvalho still has his eye on the long tail of traffic. 'What's it look like?'

'Complicated. It's a sealed unit, with a digital clock and key-pad trigger.'

'Motion sensors? Pick-up switches? Power loops?'

Rocco wipes sweat from his forehead. 'Maybe, but I didn't see any. It's high-tech. Looks as if it's been in position for a while.'

'And it's ticking?'

'It's ticking. Display shows fifteen minutes and counting.'

'Where's the bomb squad now?'

'On their way. But, Major, they're coming from Padua, they'll never make it.'

Vito looks at his watch: 2.45 p.m. That means it's 5.45 a.m. in California. Fifteen minutes to Bale's execution. 'You know anything about defusing bombs?'

Rocco smiles. 'Only what I've seen on TV.'

Choices roll like dice in the major's mind. Can he hope the bridge clears in time? The device malfunctions? The bomb squad arrives and saves the day?

He knows he can't risk it.

'Show me, Rocco. Show me the damned thing for myself.'