The Testament, page 13
"Here goes," she said, taking the glasses and placing the right lens between the light and the wall.
Nothing.
She moved the glasses slightly so that the right lens was in the greenish glow. Immediately, a set of numbers appeared within the oval of illumination.
"Magic!" Jenny said with a small laugh. She turned to look at Bravo, who was scrutinizing the numbers.
"Do you know what they represent?" she said.
He frowned in concentration. "To be honest, the groupings look vaguely familiar, though I can't say why."
"A mathematical formula, maybe."
"Yes, that would make sense." He grabbed a pad and pen from Jenny's workspace, jotted down the series of numbers and spaces precisely as it was projected. "The fact is, though, mathematical formulae are difficult to decipher. Right now I think you'll agree that we don't have time to work on it. Unless there's another reason for us to remain here, I think we should leave as quickly as possible."
"I agree." Switching off the lamp, Jenny handed the glasses to Bravo and stood up.
They went back up into the dark house. Light from the winding street and the neighboring houses came through the window in a haloed glow.
Careful to stand well back, Jenny peered out at the street. She was so still he could barely see the rise and fall of her breast.
"What are we waiting for?" he said, but she immediately raised a warning hand to silence him.
After a moment, she moved further back into the shadows of the room, taking him with her.
"We can't leave," she whispered, "at least not as we are."
"Donatella?"
"The delivery truck across the street."
"What about it?" he said.
"If it was here on legitimate business its lights would be on, wouldn't they?"
He stared out at the darkened van. Was someone-Donatella-in there, clandestinely watching them? The thought sent an unpleasant chill down his spine.
"That's a hell of an assumption to make."
"I saw that same truck when we were on our way to the cemetery."
Bravo let out a long breath. "What do we do?" he said. "We can't stay here."
"No we can't. And as you've pointed out, the quicker we make our exit, the better. Our only chance is to change our appearance." She turned her back to him, as he had done with her, and said, "I need your help."
She instructed him on how to braid her hair and pin it up onto her head. The hair cascading down her back was thick, heavy and lustrous. When he first took hold of it, the sensation was new to him, clear and direct without prior associations. What she was asking him to do was basic, so simple she could have done it herself. But for him it was intimate and erotic, so that when he was done, he was reluctant to let go. He wondered, fleetingly, whether her request had been a deliberate attempt at reconciliation-or a stab at binding him to her.
They went back to the door to the garage. In the mudroom, she grabbed one of the baseball caps, set it firmly on her head, pulled on one of her father's windbreakers, gave Bravo an argyle cardigan to wear.
They crossed the garage, hurried past the vintage Mercedes and passed through a door on the far side, entering the gardener's shed. Jenny immediately went to one wall against which sat a collapsed wheelchair. She unfolded it and gestured.
"Take a seat."
Bravo stared at her for a moment, then he gave a low laugh. Shaking his head in wonderment, he settled himself into the wheelchair's leather seat.
"Hunch over, try to pull your shoulders up around your ears." Jenny pulled on a pair of fingerless driving gloves. "That's right. Think like an old man."
Bravo's hands on the armrests began to tremble.
"Nice touch," Jenny said as she wrapped him in a shawl. Then she pulled open a side door and wheeled him through. "Here we go."
Donatella, sitting behind the wheel of the delivery truck, did not expect a light to go on in the house; she was looking for movement. With the ATN PVS7-XR5 Night Vision goggles strapped to her head, she looked strange, like some sort of giant nocturnal sloth. While the infrared function couldn't penetrate walls or glass, it was providing an accurate reading. Apart from a single ghost reading as she was setting up the equipment-and that might have been a cat or a racoon-there had been no human movement around the house. That did not mean Braverman Shaw and his Guardian weren't inside-just the opposite, to her way of thinking. After all, how many places did they have to go?
Why this Guardian had been assigned to Shaw remained a mystery to Donatella, one that nagged at her. She did not like mysteries, especially when they applied to Dexter Shaw, who had been legendary for the mysteries with which he surrounded himself. His demise had been attempted three times since she had joined the Knights of St. Clement, all without success. The successful attack had been in the making for months, maybe even years-long before the crisis had come upon them and the timetable had been moved up. The desperate rush had necessitated that less competent people be utilized, and this had inevitably led to some mistakes. She was certain that Braverman Shaw's Guardian knew that the recent deaths of the five members of the Haute Cour was a concerted attack by the Knights, a push to finally gain the cache of secrets the heretical Order had been hoarding for centuries.
She shifted her head, so that another vector of the property was visible. Despite the fact that she was an enemy, Donatella felt a certain secret kinship with Braverman Shaw's Guardian that had nothing to do with philosophy and everything to do with gender. Ivo, like the male Guardians of the Order, hated Jenny's status, hiding that hatred behind a cruel and unjust derision. As a result, Ivo had consistently underestimated Jenny's abilities, and Donatella would not put it past Dexter Shaw to have assigned Jenny to guard his son for just this reason.
The infrared was picking up movement to her right, and she swiveled her head like a dog on point. The configuration was odd, and she switched to conventional night vision. An old man in a wheelchair was being pushed by a slim young man-possibly his son-in a baseball cap and windbreaker. But then again maybe not. Flicking open her cell phone, she pressed the first speed-dial numeral. When the voice answered, she asked for a list of all the residents on the street. Research was everything, and the resources of the Knights of St. Clement were vast. "I'm looking for an invalid, seventy years of age or above." Ninety seconds later, she had her answer and, her suspicions confirmed, fired the truck's ignition and drew her gun.
"See that black Lexus sedan on the next block?" Jenny said as she pushed Bravo along the sidewalk. "It belongs to my father, he kept it there for emergencies. That's our ticket out of here."
The rain came down in sheets, turning the walls of the houses black and menacing. A car engine coughed to life, and Bravo started. They were perhaps a hundred yards from the Lexus when he heard the deep, phlegmy cough of a truck's engine, saw movement out of the corner of his eye.
Apparently, Jenny had heard it, too, because she gave the wheelchair a huge push, sending it barreling at the Lexus. As she ran, she unlocked the doors electronically. Bravo had wrenched the door open even before the wheelchair smacked into the car's side.
The truck was roaring at them as Jenny launched herself in beside him. He scrambled over as she slammed home the key, fired up the Lexus. Putting it in gear, she stepped on the gas. Tires squealing, the Lexus sped down the street, the truck thrumming ominously behind it.
A single shot rang out, and then they were racing around the first curve, wind whistling, rain thick as sleet against the windshield, picking up speed with every second.
Bending low over the wheel, Jenny steered the Lexus through the road's sweeping curve. Ahead lay the first of the switchbacks as the road followed the steep contours of the hill. They flew past large houses, swaths of lawn and flower-bedecked side gardens. Here and there was the lush, heavily treed open space of a vacant lot, brief glimpses of the area's pristine beauty before the developers had unleashed their bulldozers.
A rising sound caused her to shout, "Take a look behind us!"
But Bravo had already swiveled around as far as he could. "The truck!" he shouted back. "I think it means to ram us!"
Jenny had more immediate things to worry about. Along this middle stretch, the road was pitched much more steeply, and with the slick asphalt and terrible visibility it was taking every ounce of her concentration to keep the Lexus from careening into a curb and overturning. Several times she came perilously close, and Bravo's heart rose up into his throat for fear that they would crash. Then, by some clever trick, she would right their course, and they'd be back on the middle of the deserted road again.
The deep roar of the pursuing truck echoed off the house facades. Bravo could see that it was gaining on them. It was so close now that a passing streetlight momentarily flared along the driver's face. Donatella! She didn't fire again; in this upscale residential neighborhood she wouldn't make the same mistake twice. Instead, she concentrated on devouring the space between them, until the engine became a roar in his ears and he thought he could feel its heat like the breath of a demon hound.
He wasn't far wrong. An instant later, he felt a tooth-rattling jar as the corner of the truck's front bumper struck them. The Lexus went skidding toward the curb, and he saw Jenny whip the wheel over, jerking the car to the left. For a heart-stopping moment, the car skidded, kept to its deadly course. Then it seemed to hesitate, as if unsure what had been asked of it. Just as they were about to hit the curb, the tires caught, the Lexus moved sharply to the left and the crisis was averted. But now the truck's throaty roar seemed to redouble as Donatella drove in for the kill.
Up ahead, a BMW sedan with a teenager behind the wheel was coming toward them with only its parking lights on. Hardcore rap poured out of the open windows. The kid, drunk on beers and music, was going too fast for the road, even if it had been dry and the car had been less powerful. The BMW slewed slightly this way and that as its inexperienced driver tried to deal with the effects of wet leaves and slick patches on the tarmac. His lips were pulled back in a manic grin, but his eyes were wide and staring-it seemed clear that he had not yet seen them.
Jenny checked either side of the road, then taking advantage of his near-panic, maneuvered the Lexus directly toward him. In a flash, the kid saw them, and immediately the BMW changed course. The kid stepped hard on the brakes, sending the car into an uncontrollable skid. In a heartbeat, it had flashed by the Lexus and glanced off the high fender of the oncoming truck.
But instead of braking herself, Donatella pushed the accelerator to the floor. Like an elephant brushes off a fly, the truck swept the dented BMW out of its way. The kid leaned out the window and screamed obscenities.
"She's still coming!" Bravo shouted, and he heard Jenny curse in reply. The roaring was immense, filling the night with its ominous sound. "She's right behind us!"
At the last possible instant, Jenny directed the Lexus into a driveway, across a swath of newly mown grass and onto the neighboring vacant lot, which, judging by the heavy equipment parked on it, was in the process of being cleared. They shot forward as the truck jumped the curb and drove onto the lot. They bumped along for perhaps five hundred feet.
"Oh God," Jenny said in his ear.
They were at the edge of a precipice, hidden until now by trees and the equipment. There was no time to maneuver, no time even to think. In an instant, they went over, plummeting down. They struck the bare earth with bone-jarring suddenness. The Lexus bounced once, catapulted over on its side so that Bravo and Jenny were thrown together.
"Jenny," he said, "are you all right?"
She nodded. "You?"
"Just shaken up."
He reached up, tried to open the window, but the electronics were shot. Lifting his leg, he smashed the sole of his shoe hard against the glass once. The safety glass shattered, but held together. He kicked again and a hole appeared. Using his heel to smash out what shards were left, he levered himself out, then turned and helped Jenny out.
For a moment, they lay on the ground. Regaining his breath was easier than regaining his composure. Above them, the twin beams of the truck's headlights struck out into the night, seeking to capture them in their glare. Then, as Bravo groaned and rolled up onto one elbow, he saw another beam flash out and down, probing the tangled darkness in which they lay. Donatella had switched on a portable searchlight.
Jenny reached out, wordlessly pulling at him so that he followed, both of them crawling into the densest swath of undergrowth. The rain continued unabated, a natural shield against detection.
"Are you all right?" she whispered.
He nodded. "You?"
"Nothing a good night's sleep wouldn't cure." Her face was close beside him. She gave him one of her thin smiles. "Let's go."
They moved cautiously through the underbrush until they reached the road. Keeping to the lush verge, they headed away from the crash site. But they hadn't gone more than a hundred yards when a late-model Lincoln came racing around a curve toward them. Jenny grabbed Bravo, dragged him back into the foliage.
They could hear the purr of the engine as the car slowed and stopped, and they crept further into the jungle of undergrowth. They crouched, listening to the sound of their own breath.
Jenny whispered, "Don't worry. She'll never find us."
At that moment, they heard a rustle terrifyingly close by and, turning, saw the outline of a figure looming over them.
A metallic glimmering brought to them the image of a gun, and a English-accented male voice said in a self-satisfied tone, "I wouldn't count on that."
Chapter 8
"I knew it. I knew you'd run into trouble you couldn't handle."
"Kavanaugh!" Jenny said. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"What do you think?" the figure said. "Watching your sorry ass."
Bravo looked from the man to Jenny. "You know him?" he said to her.
"Braverman Shaw," she said by way of introduction, "meet Ronnie Kavanaugh."
"You poor bastard." Kavanaugh didn't offer his hand. "But all's well now that Uncle Ronnie's ridden to the rescue."
Reaching up and behind her, she undid the braid Bravo had made of her hair. "Kavanaugh is a Guardian, like me."
"Oh, not like you, princess," Kavanaugh said deadpan. "I know what I'm about."
"Is this the sonuvabitch who failed to protect my father?"
"I know you aren't referring to me." Kavanaugh had the cold, hard, domineering sneer down pat. "Surely you can't be that ignorant."
"He was never assigned to your father," Jenny said tightly. "Dexter Shaw would never put up with his attitude."
Bravo glanced upward through the rain to the top of the precipice. All was dark and still. Where had Donatella gone? He scrambled to his feet, held out his hand to help Jenny up. She ignored it, quickly stood beside him.
Kavanaugh gestured like a lord to guests newly arrived at his manor house. "Shall we?"
Under his guidance, they moved off into the thick, black underbrush. As they pushed back bullbriers and squelched through earth churned to mud, Jenny told him about Rossi and Donatella.
"I caught a glimpse of her," Kavanaugh said, "but where's Rossi?"
"Bravo killed him," Jenny said.
Kavanaugh raised his black eyebrows. "Did he now?"
"Drowned him in the cemetery lake."
"A novel manner of murder, to be sure. Well, that's one less bastard to deal with, but now his bitch is out for blood, isn't she." He was a handsome man and, despite the inherent cruelty of his smile, at once rugged and refined. Bravo could picture him in a made-to-measure Savile Row tuxedo, a single-malt Scotch in his hand, playing chemin de fer at a fashionable London casino.
"There's only one road down this way." Kavanaugh pointed toward the hazy globe of a streetlight. "I parked in the shadows just there to the right."
Perhaps a hundred yards from the car he stopped and handed the keys to Jenny. "Here's what you're going to do, princess. You and Shaw will get into the car and drive through the pool of light."
"Are you crazy?" Jenny said. "That's just what she'll be looking for."
Kavanaugh grinned. "Isn't that right. She's so maddened, she'll come after you without a second thought."
"You bet she will," Bravo said, as unhappy with Kavanaugh's plan as Jenny obviously was.
"And when she does," Kavanaugh said slowly, as if reciting the alphabet to a slightly dim child, "I will be waiting to gun her down."
Jenny shook her head. "You're using Bravo as bait. It's too dangerous."
"Strong emotion of any sort-most especially rage-makes one commit stupid acts. I'm using Donatella's rage against her," Kavanaugh said. "D'you have a better notion?"
In the ensuing silence, he drew his gun. "I thought not. Let's get to it."
The car-a large Lincoln-was precisely where Kavanaugh said it would be. Jenny circled the vehicle, her fingertips running lightly over the painted metal.
"Okay," she nodded, "get in."
"You gave in too easily," Bravo said as he strapped himself into the passenger's seat.
"What would you know about it?" she said tartly.
"So you really think this will work?"
Jenny inserted the key into the ignition. "It's a good plan, but I'll deny I said it if you ever tell him. I couldn't stand the smug look on his face."
Bravo regarded her a moment, weighing something in his mind. "You have a thing for him, don't you?"
She snorted. "What? Are you kidding?"
"Your cheeks are pink… princess."
She turned on him. "Don't be an ass."
Turning on the ignition, she put the Lincoln in gear, drove it onto the road, which ran in a more or less north-south direction. On their right was the rock face of the precipice, on their left was underbrush, glades and thick stands of leafy ash, beech and alder. They headed north, and the halo of illumination grew as they neared the closest streetlight.
"See anything?" Bravo said.
