The Testament, page 10
Bravo ran to the door, but it was shut tight; they were trapped. A soft hiss made him turn, and he saw the tear gas foaming out of the canister, a venomous wave that surged toward them.
Chapter 5
Donatella and Rossi, their faces made bestial by black and silver snouts, burst through the bronze mausoleum door. They had waited for precisely three minutes before they had donned the gas masks. Then they had heaved open the heavy door. Weapons at the ready, they rushed inside, taking up first positions, Rossi just inside the door, Donatella into the western corner.
The atmosphere was that of a building after a fire. The gas, having dispersed, now hung in gauzy tiers like industrial smog, obscuring the ceiling. Nevertheless, there was no doubt that they were the only two living people occupying the mausoleum. They glanced at each other. Even through the lenses of the eye pieces, they could read the consternation and anger in each other's eyes.
"They're here," Rossi said, his voice slightly muffled.
Donatella walked along the western wall, eyeing the plaster with its constellations of faux striations. "The Order is fond of secret escape routes." Her head swung around. "You know what to do now."
Rossi, near the doorway, stood in the last of the afternoon's ruddy light. "Now that the time has come, I find I don't want to leave you."
She lifted the gun into his line of vision, deliberately tapped the butt against the rear wall. "You're wasting time."
He grunted and disappeared through the open doorway.
"Now," Donatella said softly, as she returned to the problem at hand, "where are you, my little cockroaches?"
When the canister hit the floor, Jenny and Bravo had at once held their breath. Nevertheless, their eyes had begun to sting and tear, and the delicate flesh of their nostrils swelled painfully. Jenny had turned to the lower of the two crypt doors and with arms spread wide, depressed a pair of hidden studs, all but invisible in the complex pattern of faux veining.
The bronze door had opened, revealing not the mahogany side of a coffin but a swath of mysterious darkness. Already an ache had begun deep in his lungs as his body called out for oxygen. He did not think that they could hold their breath much longer. Apparently, Jenny had come to the same conclusion because she gestured toward the opening. He climbed in, making sure not to hit his head. He was reaching his hand up to feel the surface of the low ceiling-and fighting claustrophobia-when he felt her climb in beside him, and he inched himself further into the recess. In a brief aureole of light, he saw her fingers work something, then the heavy crypt door swung shut. This was accompanied by a peculiar sound, as of air hissing from a damaged tire, and with a renewed surge of claustrophobia, he realized that an air-tight seal had been activated, the better to preserve the mortal remains of the entombed loved ones. Then, as panic was about to set in, he saw Jenny's face as she switched on her pencil flashlight. A sly smile crossed her oval face. And then he understood-the air seal was what would save them from the tear gas. No matter how saturated the inside of the mausoleum got, the gas could not affect them in here.
They started as the sharp report came to them from the other side of the casket door. Bravo felt sweat break out on his skin, but his mouth was abnormally dry. He remembered his father telling him of the terror-filled moments just before the desperate retreat from the Nairobi embassy. "I was sweating all over, but curiously, my mouth was dry. Fear does that to you, Bravo. And I was relieved, which you might find even more curious, but the truth is, those who aren't afraid wind up dead."
At close range Donatella examined the two casket doors, tapping here and there, softly, softly in a rhythmic pattern, her head cocked all the while, her ear close enough to evaluate the sounds returning from her gentle probing.
All at once her eyes widened and she drew out of her pocket a length of a puttylike material. Without haste, she worked the pliable material into the hinges of the lower casket door. She flipped open a lighter and held the flame against one end of the material until with a bright flash it began to burn with a devastating heat. She smiled and, with grim satisfaction, said, "Yes, indeed, I have you now."
Another noise came to them, an evil sound as of the hollow rattle of a poisonous serpent, and then a blast of heat like the livid flame of a blowtorch was transmitted by the metal.
He heard her voice, soft but filled with urgency, "They're melting the hinges off the door. Quickly, now! Go!"
In the brief flare of the penlight he saw her point across his chest to his right, and in an awkward sort of wriggle he began to move, but to where? he wondered.
As if divining his question, she used the narrow beam of her penlight in lieu of words. Turning his head, he saw a passageway that sloped steeply downward, presumably below the mausoleum's foundation. As he wriggled his way toward it he marveled at the ingenuity, for the escape route must have been devised at the time of the mausoleum's construction.
Bravo crawled through the darkness, hemmed in on every side, with the unseen but very much heard enemy howling at his heels. The mineral scent of wet limestone mingled with the odors of decomposition that conjured up images of freshly turned earth, leaf mold, corkscrewed worms and ash. With Jenny close against his spine, he experienced a sense of the space ahead narrowing even further until it was no larger than his own body, and he discovered a fear inside himself, irrational and therefore overwhelming, that he was going to become stuck in this tunnel, unable either to move forward or back.
"What is it?" Jenny whispered in his ear. "Why have you stopped?"
Bravo said nothing. At the same time, he felt incapable of moving.
The heat seemed to follow them, growing in intensity. And with it he thought he could discern the first crack of light as the hinges on the casket door gave out.
Sensing his paralysis, Jenny said, "Lie flat on your back." She slithered atop him. "Press your shoulder blades against the floor." She stared down at him, her breasts flattened against his chest, her breath quick on his cheek. Her heat began to seep into him. There was nowhere left for him to move. Terror crept through him, primitive and compelling, and he fought to keep it at bay lest it lock him in its vise.
"Bravo!"
Light now, definitely, a sliver like the blade of a knife. And then, startlingly, a female voice-undoubtedly Donatella's-sang in a lilting alto, "Come out, come out wherever you are…"
Jenny was gripping his jaw, her eyes boring into him, willing him to comply. As if in a dream he did as she asked, exhaling deeply, and after a moment of slow and torturous maneuvering, he felt her sliding, hips first, then midriff and shoulders, onto the far side.
She took his hand in hers, squeezed it briefly. "It gets wider from here."
Belatedly, he understood. She was ahead of him, in a position to lead them on and, hopefully, out.
The tunnel's ceiling did get higher, but not by much. At the same time the downward slope grew steeper, so that they half slid, half tumbled in a blur of sickening motion, scraped elbows and bruised hips. Bravo recognized a certain grimness to their flight. Like an animal being brought to bay, he felt the pressure of pursuit, as well as the terrible consequences should they be caught.
At length, there was enough room for them to crawl on hands and knees, though every so often the rough ceiling scraped across his back, further abrading his clothes. He felt a growing desire to look back, to judge the progress of their pursuit, but that would have meant stopping. In any case, there was no room to simply look over his shoulder.
They came at last to the end of the tunnel, were faced by a cement wall seeping water. Directly in front of it was an iron ladder that rose vertically and disappeared into what, in the limited light from the pencil flash, seemed to be misty infinity.
Without hesitation, Jenny grasped the rungs and hauled herself upward. Bravo scrambled after her. Just before he rose off the floor of the tunnel, he saw a piercing flash of light coming from behind them.
Jenny, climbing quickly and surely, soon reached the upper reaches of the escape route, which was a circular section of stones-a well, Bravo soon saw. In seconds, they emerged from the wellhead into a small clearing surrounded by dense underbrush and just beyond a pair of massive weeping willows, which provided natural cover and a kind of bower that, rising up and falling in a profusion of cascades, blocked out sun and sky.
The ground was uneven here. To their left, it sloped away steeply; to their right, it rose toward a flat plateau above which the oldest of the headstones could be made out through the trees.
Jenny gave him a small, tight smile of encouragement and began to lead them up toward the graves. At that moment, there was a small rustling off to their left, and Rossi appeared from behind the bole of one of the willows. He was holding a handgun at arm's length, aiming it with his left hand cupped beneath the butt to hold the weapon steady.
Bravo called out, his voice sharp in warning. Jenny was in the process of turning when Rossi fired. She spun toward Bravo, her eyes wide and staring blankly. Then her knees buckled and she toppled over into the grass.
At once, Rossi swiveled toward Bravo, who turned on his heel and took off in a ragged zigzag down the slope toward the sanctuary of the other willow. Something flew by his ear, and he flung himself sideways, tripped over a root and went sprawling head over heels down the slope.
There came a furious crashing behind him, as of a beast run amok. It was Rossi tearing full tilt after him, his head and torso pitched backward to keep himself upright. But at that pace there was no chance to get off a second shot.
Bravo, his attention divided between front and rear, stumbled as his shoe sole skidded off a rock slick with damp moss. Instinctively, he extended an arm, and a jolt of pain shot up from his hand as he went down hard. He was on the bank of the lake by this time, the ground steeply pitched, but his fall had slowed his forward momentum considerably, so that Rossi overtook him with heart-stopping suddenness.
Partly out of instinct, partly out of self-defense, Bravo extended his upper leg. Rossi, in the process of trying to forestall his headlong momentum, was unable to avoid tripping over it. At once Bravo was on him. Caught up in the other's momentum, Bravo found himself rolling over and over as he struggled to keep his grip on Rossi's gun wrist. Faster and faster they spun, locked in a death grip. Weeds whipped by them and mud flew off them as they kicked and clawed at each other, teeth bared, hearts hammering in their chests. They might have been two beasts fighting over territory, over a female, a breeding ground. Fists hammered against muscle and bone-they fought for the advantage of position as well as for the killing blow. Intellect was swept away in the dark undertow of primitive instinct. Preoccupied with survival, they plunged into the lake and immediately disappeared beneath the water. The water became an enemy to them both, slowing them down, entangling them, drawing them down into its airless embrace.
Spray flew as they rose up out of the lake, gasping, locked together. They slipped and slid on the gluey bottom. As they were toppling over, Rossi slammed his forehead into the bridge of Bravo's nose. Bravo felt as if he had been struck by lightning. He must have blacked out for an instant because the next thing he knew, he was under the water again. He gasped, taking in water, choked.
There was a restriction around his throat: Rossi's hands clamped against his windpipe. Rossi was pressing down, knees drawn up as weapons, all his weight centered on Bravo's chest. Bravo struggled, could see nothing through the churned-up water. Desperately he tried to pry Rossi's hands from his throat, but the fingers were like iron, and in his position he lacked leverage.
He began to see spots in front of his eyes, first white, then black; consciousness flickered in and out and he felt a growing lassitude in his extremities. And from this painless place a thought curled like a serpent: Why not let it all go? Why not close his eyes and just drift away?
Arms splayed out, Bravo knew that he was dying. And still, as if working of their own volition, his hands moved crabwise, the half-curled fingers scrabbling through the silt into which Rossi was in the process of burying him. It took him a moment to recognize the feeling transmitted through the fingertips of his left hand to his half-numbed brain. Then he curled his fingers, grasping the hard object, swinging his arm up and around, slamming the object as hard as he could into the orbital bone just above Rossi's left eye.
Rossi, thrashing in pain, relinquished his grip on his throat. Gathering all that remained of his strength, Bravo rose off the lake bed, gasping in a great lungful of air as he swung again. He saw what he held-Rossi's own gun, abandoned in the heat of the hand-to-hand combat-and he brought it down against the vulnerable spot just above Rossi's ear.
Rossi went down, thrashing, but one claw-fingered hand grabbed the front of Bravo's sodden shirt, took him off his feet, back under the water. Rossi struck out blindly, his fist catching Bravo on the cheek and side of the neck. Bravo staggered, felt a wave of dizziness threaten to overwhelm him. Rossi was turning, trying to reverse their positions so that he was once again on top. If he managed that, Bravo knew that he was finished. As blind as Rossi, he reached out. His nails scratched for purchase on the skull, caught at the thick hair and held on as he struck Rossi again and again with the butt of the gun. Finally, there was no more movement left.
More than anything now Bravo needed air. He rose up, but even in death Rossi kept his grip on the front of his shirt. He tried to pry the fingers loose, failed, began to frantically tear off his shirt, but the oxygen in his lungs was giving out, the silty floor of the lake was sucking him down, and he knew he wouldn't make it.
Then, at the last possible instant, hands reached down from above, plunging through the murk, grasping him, hauling with relentless strength. Bubbles streaming from between clenched teeth, he grasped the hairless forearms, female forearms, capable and powerful, and he knew that Donatella had found him and that now that he had killed her lover nothing could save him.
Chapter 6
He had the presence of mind to use the only weapon at his disposal. But in his depleted condition Rossi's gun seemed as heavy and unwieldy as a refrigerator, and even as he lifted it, a blow to the inside of his wrist defeated his wavering aim. It was not a hard blow, and he wondered at that even as he heard a voice.
"Bravo… where is Rossi?"
A female voice, Donatella. Of course she wanted to know where her lover was. If he told her… He began to fight and was restrained. A familiar voice-had he heard Donatella speak before? He could not remember, but he must have because she was shaking him now. He wanted to see her face, to look into the eyes of the woman who was going to kill him, but there was water streaming across his face, and bits of mud and debris from the lake. Still he fought, though pinned, because it was the only thing he could think of to do.
"Rossi, Bravo… Bravo!"
A hand wiped across his face, clearing his vision, and that voice-of course it was familiar. He found himself staring up into a face as familiar as the voice.
"Jenny," he said. She was straddling him, fingers curled around each of his wrists, pinioning him to the ground. "I saw Rossi shoot you. You fell and…"
She leaned over, her eyes fever-bright. "Bravo, where is Rossi?"
"Dead. Rossi's dead. But you…"
"That's right, I'm bruised but unhurt."
He stared, wide-eyed, as she opened her blouse partway so that he could see the puffy bruise, already turning livid, around her collarbone.
"I… I don't understand. The bullet should have torn you apart."
She took Rossi's gun from his hand, ejected the ammo from the chamber, and held it out to him. "Not if it was a rubber bullet."
He sat up then, coughed as she scrambled off him, gave him a hand up. Taking one of the bullets from her palm, he rolled it between his fingers, as if the tactile sensation would help him to understand. "But why would Rossi use rubber bullets?"
"I don't know," Jenny said, "but let's not debate the issue here. We're too exposed and Donatella can't be far away."
Donatella! He looked around. Splashes of light drifted through the leaves of the weeping willow. He looked back up the slope toward the mausoleum, hidden by the trees and underbrush. At any moment Donatella could appear. It was a miracle that she hadn't already. He nodded, then allowed Jenny to lead him around the northern edge of the lake, through a thick copse of beech trees to a low stone wall over which they clambered. His head felt as if at any moment it was going to explode, and he could feel every blow Rossi had delivered like electric shocks running through him with each step he took.
Once on the other side of the wall, they were confronted by a narrow line of river maples beyond which was a road. They could hear the whirr and hiss of two-way traffic, reminding them of the normal world that existed all around them. For a moment, Bravo leaned back against the rough stones of the wall. He felt their age seeping into him, and he listened, as if they had a tale to tell him.
"Bravo, we have to keep moving," Jenny said with some urgency.
He knew that, of course, but he remained where he was. It was imperative that he regain his inner equilibrium, but he was gripped by despair. He had just killed a man. Whether or not that man was also trying to kill him was, in a way, beside the point. It came to him that he had crossed some profound moral boundary, and now, belatedly, he wondered whether his father had had to kill a Knight of St. Clement to protect himself or the Order's cache of secrets. Now, an idea that would once have struck him as unthinkable did not seem in the least shocking. In fact, it seemed probable, and somehow this notion was like a beacon piercing the black despair. In his mind, this connection to the other, secret world that his father had inhabited was like a lifeline, and the moment he grabbed it he felt himself stand up straight. Seconds later, he was following Jenny through the grass and hedges, through the thin line of the flaky-barked maples to the verge of the road.
At last, Donatella emerged from the wellhead. Because of the mechanism that hermetically sealed the interior of the crypt, it had taken her far longer to get through the bronze casket door than she had estimated. Precious time when her quarry was moving farther away from her. She consoled herself with the thought that every step they took brought them closer to Rossi, but, truth be told, she didn't want Rossi to get to them first. She wanted that pleasure all to herself. She'd known it as soon as she had flirted with Braverman Shaw on the street. Drawing attention to herself had been a stupid thing to do, she'd known when she'd smiled at him, but she couldn't help herself. There had been something in him, some deeply suppressed animal part she had recognized instantly and responded to. There had been something profoundly intimate-primal-in that moment, two animals scenting each other in the forest, that she now carried around with her like a photo in a locket.
