The Testament, page 19
After lunch, they mounted the seawall again and stood in the same spot as before. Again, Bravo pointed. "Look!"
As they watched, they saw a ghostly shape rising slowly out of the sea.
Jenny, glancing at her watch, said, "One, five, three, zero. Fifteen-thirty-it's military time! Three-thirty in the afternoon."
Bravo nodded. "My father was referring to the tide tables. See there, the ebbing tide is bringing his piscina to us."
The ghostly shape began to resolve itself as the water of the bay continued to recede. Soon it became clear that they were looking at concrete walls.
"A swimming pool!" Jenny exclaimed.
"Yes, and a damned clever one, too. Look, it's three-sided to hold the sea water and allow anyone coming from the shore to enter, so that people have a place to swim all afternoon long while the tide is out."
They went a little way along the seawall until they came to a flight of steps on its far side.
"Come on," he said.
Clattering down the steps, they emerged onto the beach. Immediately, they were struck by the reflected heat and a stronger scent of brine, along with the odors of aquatic decay, suntan oil and pleasantly perspiring bodies. Down the beach some way was a shack selling raw oysters, frites and cold drinks. The beach was filled with people-women in skimpy bikinis or bare-breasted, men talking, arms folded across their chests. Three children kicked a multicolored striped ball into the surf, where bathers were coming and going.
Bravo and Jenny removed their shoes. He rolled up his trousers and she lifted her skirt, wrapping it like a Turkish towel around the tops of her thighs. Then they walked across the sand, wading out toward the swimming pool, which was still rising from the restless waters of the bay.
Using the GPS, Bravo guided them deeper into the water, which rose to their thighs. When they reached the left wall of the pool, Bravo moved along it to the farthest point. He ran his fingers down the inside of the wall as far as they would go.
"Anything?" Jenny asked.
He shook his head.
Not far from where they stood, Camille leaned against the seawall. She had on a scarf that completely covered her hair, and she had bought a man's felt cap whose shallow brim she kept low on her forehead. Her elbows were on the top of the seawall, and her hands gripped a pair of powerful binoculars through which she peered at Bravo and Jenny. She watched with extreme concentration as Bravo handed the GPS, his passport and his cell phone to Jenny and then sank beneath the water.
Within three minutes, Bravo reappeared. Water streamed off him and his shirt clung to him like rags.
"There's a small, square door flush with the wall," he said as he wiped water out of his eyes. "The problem is that the door has no handle."
"Does it have a lock?"
"That's the other problem," Bravo said. "It's utterly unconventional."
"I know a bit about locks," Jenny said. "What does it look like?"
"It's a tiny square. Do you know of any kind of key that would open a square lock?"
Jenny shook her head, frowning. "But your father wouldn't have led you here unless he'd provided you with a way to open the door."
"I only have the one key he entrusted to me," Bravo said. "I promise you it's not going to open that peculiar lock."
"What else did you find in the boat compartment?" she said.
He dug in his pocket, produced the Zippo, the cuff links and the enamel lapel pin. He stared at them for a moment, trying to think as his father would have thought. The Zippo was far too big and the pin was the wrong shape, but the cuff links were cubes-and they were more or less the right size. He picked up one of them and stared at the groove pattern around its side.
"You're right!" he said excitedly, showing Jenny the grooves. "This isn't simply a cuff link-it's a key! The key to the underwater door!"
He went under the water, but soon-too soon-reemerged.
"It slides into the lock but won't turn."
"The groove pattern is wrong," Jenny said. "Try the other one."
As Bravo submerged again, Camille trained her attention on Jenny. Camille felt that she knew Bravo well enough. After all, she'd had years to absorb all the ins and outs of his psyche. It was critical now that she be able to do the same with Jenny, and her time frame was by necessity terribly compressed. Even her mole inside the Order hadn't known who would assign the Guardian to Bravo, let alone which Guardian it would be. To be truthful, she had been surprised that it had been Jenny.
In any event, if she was to carry out her plan, namely to herd Bravo and Jenny like cattle, separate them, make them desperate, then she needed to be able to get inside both their heads. What interested her now was that though they had spent the night together, Jenny was still maintaining a certain distance. In fact, from her expression and body language, Camille was sure that she was angry-but whether it was with Bravo or herself she could not yet say. Was she frigid or, possibly, gay? This was an important question for Camille because it was her experience that sexuality was a major determinant of human behavior. Camille had been in the next stall when Jenny had locked herself in and started to sob. She felt sure that this was a key moment to getting beneath the Guardian's skin and was frustrated that she hadn't learned what had caused Jenny to break down so hard.
Watching her now with the sun in her eyes, her hair gleaming, her shapely torso emerging from the white glare of the water, Camille found it in herself to admire the woman's recuperative powers, but what she was really concentrating on was the next phase of her plan to peel back the layers that all human beings erect to protect themselves and lay bare the vulnerable points she could exploit.
It was as blue under the water as the arching rock face of the Grotta Azzurra. The pale legs of waders, the hairy bellies of swimmers, Jenny's thighs-everything appeared distorted, save for the door in the concrete wall. Brushing it with the flat of his hand brought out a shine, and he could see that it was some kind of metal-stainless steel, perhaps, to repel the effects of the salt.
As if in slow motion, he extended the cuff link into the lock, turning it forty-five degrees at a time until he was able to press it all the way into the lock. He turned it and pulled. Nothing happened. He turned it the other way, pulled again and the door swung open. With his other hand, he reached in, felt something and immediately pulled it out. It was a small packet sealed in plastic. He checked to make sure there was nothing else inside the box, then he relocked it, extracted the key and, with a strong kick, breached the surface.
The moment he surfaced, he opened his fist just enough for Jenny to see what he held, then together they waded back to shallower water. They moved some distance away from the swimmers, finding a small patch of open water. As Bravo was about to open his fist again, Jenny put her hand over his and moved so that her back was to the shore.
"It pays to be cautious," she said. "We've been spied on more than once, and even though I finished off the Knights in the Mercedes, we can't be certain there wasn't a backup team in place. In fact, knowing how the Knights work, I'd be surprised if there wasn't. Given the stakes, I'll bet they're bending all their resources to keep us in range."
Bravo took a surreptitious look around. "Then why stand out in the open altogether?"
"No point in telegraphing how vigilant we are. Let them think we've forgotten all about them."
Bravo frowned, then nodded. As usual, what she said made good sense. In the shadow thrown by their closely bent heads he carefully opened the watertight wrapping and unfolded a sheet of paper. Inside was a gold coin of a male figure in a beatific pose, one hand raised in benediction. On the sheet of paper was written in his father's neat backward-slanting hand, "A scene of light and glory, a dominion/That has endured the longest among men."
Jenny looked at him questioningly. "What does it mean? More code?"
"In a way," Bravo said thoughtfully. "The quotation is from Samuel Rogers. It was a favorite of my father's, but only my mother and I knew that, I doubt that even Emma knows." He recited the two lines as if they were a prayer. "Rogers was writing about Venice."
"Obviously, that's our next stop," Jenny said. "What about the coin?"
Bravo held it between his fingertips, feeling its deep ridges. He turned it slowly, examining both its face and obverse. "First off, it's not a reproduction. It's very old-ancient, in fact. I think it will tell me where in Venice my father is sending us."
"You mean you don't know?"
"Not yet." He smiled into her concerned face. "Don't look so gloomy, I'll find the answer. When it comes to my father's codes I always have."
His heart beat fast. He was holding the confirmation in his hands. He was on a long journey, one that would keep him connected to his father even after death, for they had played this game often enough during Bravo's childhood-a game of codes, each one exponentially more difficult to crack than the last. At least, that was how it had seemed to Bravo when he was growing up. Now he knew that the lessons his father had taught him in code breaking must have been leading up to this moment. Had Dexter Shaw foreseen his death? Surely not, surely he'd been ensuring that when the time came he'd have a successor.
Bravo closed his fist around the coin. It had been warmed by the sun and by his own blood. The coin, the paper with the quotation, even the Zippo lighter had taken on far more importance. They were not simply the last remnants of his father's life. As cold and dead as he was, they carried the heat of life, the joy he'd experienced each and every time his father had challenged him to match wits. These clues brought him closer to his father than he had been since his childhood-a time when the world had made sense, when he and his father were tied together by the ever more complex and puzzling series of codes, as if they were the only two people in the universe.
Bravo and Jenny moved slowly back to where their shoes lay baking on the pale sand and sat for a time, watching swimmers in the piscina. From a plastic portable radio next to a bare-breasted sunbather came a plaintive pop song by Mylene Farmer. A group of children played in the sand, digging and building a wall from time to time undermined by the water. A pair of German women, pale-skinned and hollow-chested, walked the surf, talking of a pair of shoes they'd seen in a shopwindow. The scent of crepes and wine mingled with the salt tang. The heat of the sun baked into them, drying their clothes, the water evaporating to gritty salt on their skin.
At last, they pulled on their shoes and left the beach and its unique piscina. As they mounted the seawall, Bravo pulled out his cell phone and called the airline, making a reservation on the last flight to Venice.
"I suppose I shouldn't have sent Camille away. We need transportation back to Paris," he said when he severed the connection. "We'll walk into the new city and ask someone for directions to a rental car office."
The Old City was dense with tourists, slowing their trek through its packed streets, but at last they caught sight of the main gate.
"Now's the time to be on our guard," Jenny said.
Bravo nodded and began to walk toward the gate, but he swung around as her hand gripped his arm.
"I'm going first," she said and almost at once raised a hand to stop his intended protest. "It won't matter what argument you use, the outcome will be the same." Her gaze was as steady as it was serious. "You think I'm not up to it, but I promise you I am."
"You did a helluva job protecting me and Camille on the motorway," Bravo said, matching her serious tone. "I guess I didn't tell you that before."
"No," Jenny said, "you didn't."
She let go of him and strode purposefully past. He followed her as she snaked her way through the throng of sightseers streaming through the gate and out onto the cobbled road beyond which stretched the bus-filled car park.
They had to pause, waiting for a gap in the slow crawl of cars backed up along the road. The air was stifling with the accumulation of sun, baking stone and exhaust emissions. People were everywhere: tourists in twos, fours, and larger groups; bicyclists on errands or just out for exercise; children laughing, crying or screaming; exasperated parents tugging at their little hands. Sweet scents came to them of ice cream, sticky candy and cheap cologne. Jenny turned, saw coming toward them a group of perhaps fifteen children between the ages of eight and nine. They were accompanied by three adults, one at their head, one behind, and the third walking alongside.
A gap was opening up in the traffic flow and she was turning away when she saw movement in the corner of her eye. The third adult had broken into a lope, leaving the group of children behind. The other two adult supervisors were paying him no mind, which told Jenny they didn't know him, he'd been using the children as camouflage.
Grabbing Bravo, she plunged headlong into the gap in the traffic, but they were no more than halfway across the blisteringly hot road when she saw the bicyclist bearing down on them. It was a two-pronged attack.
There was no more time for speculation. The cyclist had a length of wicked-looking polished wood in his hand and was lifting it in preparation of delivering a blow. She had to act now.
Pushing Bravo aside, she stood tall, waited for the downswing of the stick and, moving her arm in parallel to its arc, grabbed it and, at the same time, drove the cocked elbow of her other arm into the cyclist's throat. She kicked the front wheel and the bicycle went over, taking its rider with it.
"Run!" she shouted to Bravo. "Run!"
Together, they took off along the road in the same direction as the traffic flow. Horns blared and voices were raised in outrage as they darted in and out between the cars. Risking a glance behind them, Jenny saw the first man had grabbed the fallen bicycle. He swung aboard and took off after them. In one hand he brandished a large gun.
They ran as fast as they could, but because they had to watch out for the lurching cars, stopping and starting as they brushed against them, it was slow and perilous going. The cyclist was gaining on them rapidly. Jenny looked around for alternate escape routes, but the crowd pressed in at every direction. They'd be sitting ducks for the cyclist, unless… She moved them into the thickest part of the throng, using the people around them as a shield.
But at that moment, another, even greater danger presented itself. A silver BMW X5 SUV appeared in the carpark, racing toward them from the opposite direction.
"The vise is complete," Bravo said without rancor.
There was no time for evasive manuevers-the oncoming BMW was upon them. In a moment, Jenny thought, they'd be dead meat, and there wasn't a thing she could do about it.
Chapter 13
Jenny, tensed and determined to do what she could to protect Bravo from the Knights' attack, saw the driver's head pop out of the side window.
"Get in!" he shouted.
Even while she was wondering what Anthony Rule was doing here, Bravo called out, "Uncle Tony!"
Rule risked a quick glance at the cyclist and at once saw the raised gun. "Get in, the two of you! Hurry!"
Jenny opened the SUV's door, placing her body as a shield between Bravo and the gunman. A shot rang out, piercing the window, shattering the glass. Jenny pushed Bravo's head down behind the metal as she bundled him into the backseat. The instant she jumped in, Rule took off. With a fierce blare of his horn he stopped two oncoming cars in their tracks and caused a minor fender bender as the vehicle behind them couldn't stop in time. He turned the wheel over, they jumped the low concrete divider between the road and the car park and, with more room to maneuver, he accelerated into the vast cobbled apron behind the line of tour buses. By this time they'd left the gunman far behind, a fact remarked on by Rule as he checked the rearview mirror.
"I'd have run over the bastard if I'd been alone," he said. Then he chuckled low in his throat. "But if I'd been alone he never would have been here, would he?"
"Speaking of which," Jenny said tartly, "what are you doing here?"
"Wait a minute," Bravo said, "you two know each other?"
"You're welcome," Rule said to Jenny as if Bravo hadn't asked the question. Then, when he saw her frown, his eyes flicked to Bravo in the mirror. "What was I thinking? She's the Ice Goddess, after all."
"The Ice Goddess. That's what the other Guardians call me," Jenny muttered darkly.
"You give them sufficient cause," Rule said.
"Oh, yes," she said, rising to the bait, "it's always my fault, isn't it?"
"And here's a newsflash for you, kiddo, it isn't only the Guardians."
"Why should I give a crap?"
Rule shrugged, as if to say that if she didn't want to take his advice, it was of no moment to him.
Bravo observed this dialog with a growing sense of astonishment. Not only did his father have a life kept secret from him, so did Uncle Tony.
"Shaken up, Bravo?" Rule said, as if reading his thoughts.
"Give me a minute."
Rule drove them out of the rear of the car park and into the new city, turning this way and that as if he were in a video game, making sure their enemies couldn't follow them. Of course, it made perfect sense that Uncle Tony was a Gnostic Observatine. Bravo had always called him Uncle Tony not because he was related but because he was so close with Bravo's father.
"You still haven't told us what you're doing here," Jenny pursued doggedly. "It can't be coincidence."
"Coincidence doesn't exist in the Voire Dei, does it, kiddo?" Rule shook his head. "No, I was following the trail of the second key."
"The second key?" Bravo said.
Uncle Tony nodded. "There are two keys to the cache. Your father had one, Molko had the other. Molko was taken by the Knights, tortured and killed. We have to assume they have the second key."
"So it has turned into a race," Bravo said.
