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 -