ran into the chamber.
Most of the hooded men were still in a state of shock after the two blasts, and offered no resistance. One of them, who’d been carrying a pistol but had dropped it on the floor, made a grab for it. But one of the assault team reached him before he could pick it up and smashed the butt of his sub-machine gun into the side of his head, instantly knocking him unconscious.
Bronson stood up, leaned back against the wall and raised both his hands high in the air. Frantically, he looked about him. Where was Angela? He guessed she’d dived for cover at the back of her cell as soon as the bullets started flying, and if she hadn’t covered her ears when the stun grenades went off, she was probably still disoriented. She had to be somewhere near, but right then he couldn’t see her.
Two members of the assault team walked over to him, their weapons pointing steadily at his stomach.
‘Are you Bronson?’ one of them asked him in Italian.
That was pretty much the last thing he expected them to say. Once he’d realized the men coming down the stairs were police officers, Bronson had presumed that he would be arrested with all the other people in the building and taken back to Venice.
He nodded. ‘Yes. How did you-’
‘Passport,’ the second officer snapped. ‘Now.’
Bronson reached around with his left hand, pulled the document from the hip pocket of his jeans and passed it over. One of the Italian policemen flicked it open, looked at the photograph inside it, then raised his weapon so that the beam from the attached torch shone straight into Bronson’s face. He nodded, handed back the document and lowered his sub-machine gun.
Bronson tried again. ‘How did you know who I was?’
Another figure, still wearing his black robe, strode over to the three men and pushed back his hood.
‘They knew,’ Inspector Bianchi said, ‘because I told them.’
‘But I thought-’
‘I know exactly what you thought. You almost managed to wreck our operation. It’s taken me nearly six months to get close enough to this group so that they would trust me. I only found out tonight, when they brought me here, to this island, where they were based.’
‘So how did the assault team know where to come?’
‘There’s a tracking chip in my mobile phone. As backup, I had six police boats out in the lagoon watching where I was taken. If you’d just done what I told you, and left this operation to us, we might have managed to take them all alive. As it is, now I’ve got corpses to identify as well.’
‘I saw two of your men shot when they tried to get in here. Are they OK?’
‘Yes. They’re just bruised. They both took chest shots, but they were wearing Kevlar jackets.’ Bianchi smiled for the first time since he’d walked across to Bronson. ‘Now, I have to get this situation tidied up. Don’t leave the island until you’ve made a full written statement, and keep your diary clear. We’ll probably want you to come back out here as a witness when these bastards go on trial.’
Sighing with relief, Bronson picked up the Browning pistol, clicked the safety catch on, and slid it into his belt holster. Nobody had asked him to hand it over, so he thought he might as well hang on to it. Then he walked across to the cell where Angela had been imprisoned.
She was nowhere to be seen. Bronson rubbed his eyes as he took in the roughly fashioned bed and mattress, and the chain and handcuff that had secured her to the wall. The handcuff was open, so he knew somebody – one of the policemen, perhaps – must have freed her. He stepped back into the middle of the cellar and looked round.
The injured members of the cult were sitting with their backs to the wall opposite the cells, their wrists handcuffed behind them. Some were receiving basic medical treatment, but there was little the assault team members could do for them. Bronson assumed that an ambulance boat was on its way. The dead men were still lying where they’d fallen, waiting for the arrival of a forensics team.
The girl who’d been strapped down on the stone table had been released. She was wrapped in a blanket and was clinging to one of the Italian police officers as if she never wanted to let him go. Bronson could only imagine the turmoil of emotions that were coursing through her body.
But he still couldn’t see Angela. Perhaps she’d already been taken up to ground level. Perhaps. But a knot of anxiety was forming in Bronson’s chest. He strode across the room to where Bianchi stood, issuing orders and directing his men.
‘Where’s Angela?’ he demanded. ‘Where’s my wife?’
Bianchi pointed back towards the other end of the cellar. ‘She’s in the last cell.’
Bronson shook his head. ‘No, she isn’t. Are you sure none of your men took her upstairs?’
‘Nobody has left here apart from some of my officers. She must be here.’
Then Bronson noticed something else. ‘One of them is missing,’ he said, pointing to the robed men.
‘Who?’ Bianchi demanded.
The cult members had had the hoods pulled clear of their faces. And as Bronson stared at each one in turn, he realized that the man who’d been directing operations wasn’t there.
‘The leader,’ he said. ‘Where is he?’
Bianchi snapped an order and two of his men immediately started to search the cellar.
Bronson stood there, thinking furiously. If Bianchi was right, and nobody had left the cellar up the spiral staircase, then there had to be another way out.
Somehow, the leader had managed to slip past everyone in the confusion of the police assault, and had grabbed Angela as he left.
Bronson groaned. He’d been so close, so sure that he’d managed to save her. But again she’d disappeared. And this time he had only the haziest idea where to start looking for her.
77
Bronson leaned against the wall of the cellar as he replayed the events that had just taken place. He’d seen Angela, seen exactly where she was, standing at the opening of the end cell. He’d heard her calling out his name.
Nobody had gone anywhere near her from that moment on. The attention of the hooded men had been entirely concentrated on the girl who’d been lashed down on the stone table. Then the shooting had started, and people had been moving all around the cellar, trying to take cover from the bullets, or firing themselves.
As Bronson recalled each of these events, he remembered something else: just before the screaming started, there’d been a noise like something heavy falling to the ground. But could it have been something else? Could it have been the sound of a stone door closing?
‘I think there’s another way out of here,’ Bronson said to Bianchi.
Bianchi looked doubtful. ‘An underground chamber is rare enough in the Laguna Veneta, and this is quite a big room on a small island. It’s very unlikely there are any other spaces down here.’
Bronson reached out and grabbed a torch from the assault vest of a police officer who was standing next to Bianchi. The officer tried to take it back, but the inspector stopped him.
‘Very well,’ he said, sighing. ‘But if you find a door, call me, and then we’ll assess the situation.’
Bronson ran over to the cell where Angela had been imprisoned. That was the obvious – in fact the only – starting point. But all that was there was the crudely made wooden bed, a thin mattress and a single pillow. Under the bed was a rusty metal bucket and a partially used roll of toilet paper. The only other object he could see was the steel chain lying across the mattress, one end attached to a large eyebolt screwed into the stone wall, the other end dangling down, the open handcuff resting on the floor.
Bronson turned to his right, towards the opposite end of the cellar from the stone table. If there was a hidden door – and this was the only explanation that made sense – it had to be somewhere beyond the line of cells.
He gave the outside wall of the cell a cursory glance, then directed the beam of the torch at the solid wall of the cellar as he walked across to it. The old stones looked damp and cold; and none showed the slightest sign of movement when he pressed against them. Bronson used both hands, pushing his palms firmly against each stone at
