The Testament, page 40
"Your father was a good man," Mikhail Kartli said laconically in perfect Turkish and, snapping his fingers, called for liquor. He took possession of the bottle, pouring the clear liquid into three water glasses. Bravo did not ask what it was. It was like liquid fire going down, and the afterburn tasted not unpleasantly of anise and caraway.
Kartli excused himself, finishing up the last pieces of his business. Then he turned the cell phone over to a younger version of himself-doubtless his eldest son-and they retired through a shadowed door in the rear.
A narrow, cramped corridor suddenly led out onto a bare poured-concrete terrace. An awning flapped above their heads. Rain pattered down on the crumbling city. Kartli stood spread-legged, a bantam fighter gazing down on the site of many victories. The small merchants with their painted dolls and their charcoal-braised cuttlefish, their burgeoning libraries of pirated DVDs of popular American movies looked up to him much as a small-arms dealer will genuflect before the trader in nuclear weapons.
He unfolded his arms, lit a thin black cigarette with a gold lighter. "This is not a civilized place," he said, seemingly to no one in particular. "To believe so has been the fatal mistake of many over the centuries, especially the Greeks, who came here first to tame Trebizond. The Venetians, as well, though they were more clever than the Greeks, because they were less trusting. But, in the end, Trebizond belonged to the Ottomans, and the Ottomans were not civilized, not at all. Look what they became. Turks! And then, more recently, there were the greedy Russians, speeding across the Black Sea as fast as their boats could ferry them." He shook his head sadly, throwing off the peculiar electricity of currency, as if even now he was manufacturing it somewhere inside his own body.
"Thank you for taking the time to see me," Bravo began.
"The pope is dying," Mikhail Kartli said over Bravo's last several words, "there is scarcely any time left."
"That's why I've come to you. My situation has become increasingly desperate."
Kartli turned to Bravo, the ugly black cigarette between his brilliant red lips. "You see, this is just the kind of situation the Order decided long ago to guard against. Do you think Canesi wants to save the pope's life for humanitarian reasons? Of course not. It's power, and power only. He wants to save his own skin. A new pope, clever and in his prime, surely would not tolerate their power, he'd sweep them aside like so much kindling."
A certain grit lay underfoot, like sand from the desert, like gold dust ready to be swept up and transshipped.
"How up-to-date is your news of the pope's health?"
"What do you take me for? An hour old, not a moment more." Mikhail Kartli's pale eyes bored into Bravo's. "You are in more danger than you can imagine, my friend. Elements have been awakened-new informers, the Vatican's eyes and ears-that I can neither identify nor control."
Kartli suddenly caught sight of the chased scabbard and the hilt of the dagger tucked into Bravo's waistband and his eyes narrowed. "What is this? Surely it cannot be Lorenzo Fornarini's dagger."
"It is." Bravo removed it to show him. "I've been to his sarcophagus in Venice."
"My God, Fornarini's dagger!" Kartli took another deep drag of his cigarette. "Through the priests at Trebizond, Lorenzo Fornarini was introduced to the Order, was converted to their cause, and swore allegiance to protect them, which he did with both courage and discipline, which as you can imagine impressed the fathers no end.
"Some years later, when they were attacked by the Knights of St. Clement, he was present outside the Sumela Monastery, at the last moment intervening to save Fra Leoni from Fra Kent, a traitor from within the Haute Cour. This was when Fra Leoni was the Keeper, before he became Magister Regens.
"Fra Leoni was wounded during his fight with Fra Kent. By the time he reached the cache of secrets his wound was festering, there was no doubt that he was dying. By prior arrangement, he was met by Fra Prospero, the Order's Magister Regens-in those days, both the Keeper and the Magister Regens held keys to the cache. Together, they made a monumental decision: they availed themselves of the secret of Christ's Testament. Following the directions set out by Jesus, the Magister Regens anointed Fra Leoni with the Quintessence, the sacred oil that Christ used to resurrect Lazarus and, according to the Testament, others.
"Fra Leoni was not only healed, but he lived another 350 years, eventually ascending to become Magister Regens and guiding the Order through dark and difficult times. Some believe that he died, finally, in 1918, during the worldwide influenza epidemic, but of course there are no records and so no way to know for certain."
At that moment, a bit of raucous electronic melody sounded and the Georgian pulled out another cell phone, flipped it open. He listened for a moment, then he said, "Do it. Do it now."
Closing the phone, he said to Bravo, "Someone known to you is approaching. One of my people has spotted Jennifer Logan, the traitor-oh, yes, word spread quickly within the Order. I have ordered her executed. I have someone standing by who will shoot her dead."
Chapter 24
"No," Bravo said.
Mikhail Kartli smiled thinly. "You are in my house now."
"But if you kill her you'll never find out if she and Paolo Zorzi are the only ones to have infiltrated the Order. What if there are more? She's our best chance to find out."
The Georgian knew a good argument when he heard it. Flipping open his cell phone, he pressed a speed dial and said into the mouthpiece, "Stand down and deliver her instead."
His grin grew fierce. "I only hope that you have the courage of your convictions. I hope you have the stomach for articulated interrogation. Your father certainly didn't."
"There are other ways," Bravo said.
"Name one." The Georgian said this without an edge of menace, he simply wanted to know.
"The woman is desperate to get me to believe that someone else is the traitor. She wanted me to believe that someone set her up for the murder of Father Mosto in Venice, and I almost believed her, until she shot Anthony Rule dead." He did not mention his very personal hatred of Jenny for seducing both his father and himself. "I can talk to her, I can deal with her. She'll listen to me."
"In that event, I would be exceedingly careful. Have you thought about how she followed you here?"
Bravo stared at the Georgian.
"Did you tell Father Damaskinos you were coming to Trabzon?"
Father Damaskinos had asked him where he was going next, and Bravo had told him.
"Yes, of course you did," Kartli said, answering his own question. "She must have been the one who interrogated him and murdered him."
"Father Damaskinos is dead?"
"One of our people found him in his apartment last night and contacted me immediately." The Georgian spat again, more heavily this time, as if it was an uttered curse. "His face was burned, then his throat was slashed in a very particular manner."
"What do you mean?"
"It was made with a push-dagger. How do I know? A push-dagger is made for stabbing, not slashing, so when it's used for slashing the wound is unmistakable." Kartli paused for a moment. "I know someone who kills in this manner; he's a Knight of St. Clement assassin. He must have trained her. Does this girl carry a push-dagger?"
"I never saw one on her," Bravo said, "but all along the bitch has been full of surprises."
"Do you think it wise," Damon Cornadoro said as he watched Jenny passing through the narrow streets of the European Market, "to allow her to go off to meet with Bravo alone?"
Camille studied his handsome face, admiring him as if he were a statue sculpted by Michelangelo. She put a slender forefinger, warm against his cool flesh, across his lips. "What's the matter, my love? Do you think she can persuade him to the truth, rather than the ever more plausible lie I have laid out for him?"
"Rational argument has nothing to do with it. There is chemistry between them, I felt it the night they arrived in Venice. When I lifted her on board the motoscafo, when I put my hands on her waist and drew her close to me I thought he was going to kill me."
Camille laughed. "Mon dieu, what an imagination you have, darling! They fuck and you see skyrockets."
Cornadoro shrugged his huge shoulders. "Now that he's isolated I want to make sure he stays that way."
"Oh, and whose idea was that, Damon, yours or mine? Don't you worry, when it comes to isolation I know all the ins and outs. He hates her now, she killed his beloved 'Uncle Tony,' just as I planned it."
She could feel his heat, the brief tremor as his yearning responded to the proximity of her body. On the pretext of keeping Jenny in view, she contrived to lean ever so slightly against him, so that the tips of her breasts, the small platter of her belly, the strong pillars of her thighs imprinted themselves briefly on his muscles. "Not all men are like you."
"Women rarely get what they want, Camille, though what that might be eludes me."
He smiled the smile that was impermissible, the smile that revealed his weakness to anyone who, like her, was clever enough to see it. His weakness she knew well, and it made her long for the heady days of Dexter, a man who grasped the big picture and never let go.
"But you-you're different-you know men better than any other woman."
"Better than they know themselves," she said casually. "That's the point, isn't it?"
"How do you do it? That's what I'd like to know."
She ran her nail across the stubble of his cheek, as if tracing out a scar. "Poor baby. If you have to ask, you'll never understand."
He grew angry then, which is what she wanted, his eyes blazing, his reflexes animal sharp. When he made to grab her, she danced lithely away. But she didn't laugh at him. With each of her men she knew where to draw the line, and she never transgressed. That was her secret. She had failed only once, with Dexter Shaw-not that Cornadoro would ever find out.
"Alors, you have the Husqvarna," she said, referring to the sniper's rifle. "It's time to take it to the rooftops."
They stood facing each other: Bravo and Jenny, amid the bustling, noisy, anonymous street. No one in their view paid them the slightest attention, but there were others, hidden from them, who were very much interested in what they said and did.
"I said if I saw you again I'd kill you," Bravo said.
Jenny spread her hands. "Here I am." She had to bite her lip to keep from screaming. How on earth was she going to make him understand?
"Are you armed?"
She laughed, a bitter sound she immediately wanted to spit out like the white under-rind of a lemon. "Do you imagine I'd shoot you?"
"You shot Uncle Tony-"
"Because he was the mole, he was the traitor-"
"You slashed Father Damaskinos's throat after you set fire to his face."
"What?" Her eyes opened wide. "What did you say?"
He came toward her, hating her and at the same time marveling at the naturalness of her performance. "Where is it?"
"If Father Damaskinos is dead you can be sure I had nothing to do with it," she said with a good deal of alarm.
"I'm no longer sure of anything." He'd had enough of her feigned innocence. "The push-dagger-where is it?"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"I want it!"
"You're crazy! I don't know-"
Taking her by the wrist, he pulled her out of the dust and the grit into the shadows beneath a dilapidated awning. They appeared to be a couple in the middle of a minor dispute, that was all.
"Let go of me," she said quietly, balefully. Despite her best efforts, her anger at what she saw as his obtuseness was getting the better of her. What was the use of trying to explain what had happened to her? One look at his stony, closed-down face told her that he'd never believe her. He didn't want to. And it was this last realization that spun her down into the lowest depths of despair.
"Listen, you," Bravo said, "Mikhail Kartli-surely you know who he is-wants you dead. He had sent one of his men to shoot you for being a traitor to the Order-"
"I'm not a traitor-"
"Shut up!" He jerked her around and she nearly tripped a portly Turk negotiating hotly to buy a copper kettle. He ignored the Turk's brief alarm, ignored, also, the deep circles under Jenny's eyes, the unnatural pallor of her cheeks, as if the pith of her was disintegrating, as if something had devastated her from the inside out. Which was difficult, because it meant ignoring the painful lurch the sight of her gave his heart-despite her lying, her deceit, her murderous treachery he felt… God help him. Again, his heart contracted, and he wondered whether he could forgive himself for loving her still. "The only reason you're still alive is that I told Kartli I'd talk to you-that I'd get out of you whether there are any more moles inside the Order."
"I have no idea. You'd have to ask Anthony-"
Rule's name became a scream as he dragged her back into the street. It was his love, he realized with a shock that literally sickened him, that bore his rage on high. His hatred of her was not a professional hatred-he was ignoring Uncle Tony's admonition to disinvolve himself personally, to keep his head well above the rising tide of the Voire Dei's toxic sludge. He loved her and she was evil. How on earth could that be?
"It's to be the hard way, then," he said with exaggerated grimness. "I'll take you to Kartli. He has all manner of articulated interrogation in mind to make you talk." Her eyes found his, and the part of himself that loved her still shied away from her challenge, disengaging at the last instant, so that a stranger with his mouth said: "In other words, torture."
Jenny was stricken, felled as if by a bolt of lightning. "How can you-? God in heaven, how can you even contemplate such a monstrous thing? I'll fight you tooth and nail right here, you know that."
Something buzzed past her cheek, soft as a moth, causing her to gasp, take an involuntary step back. Just beyond her reach, the portly Turk lost control of the kettle, his arms splayed out, pitching forward into the copper merchant as the bullet caught him between the shoulder blades.
Instantly, the market erupted into a tsunami of shouts, gesticulations and pounding feet. People ran in every direction. The melee flung Bravo and Jenny apart, and Jenny took the opportunity to sprint away into the crowd. There was no point in attempting to follow her, for she was soon lost to his sight and he was borne away on the rising tide of panic.
"You told me-"
"I am a man of my word," Mikhail Kartli said firmly.
"And yet one of your men tried to kill her."
The Georgian stood with his arms crossed. A tattoo of a hawk with open wings showed on the inside of one wrist, a controlled burst of colors on the brown flesh. "Correction. Not one of my men."
"Then who?" Bravo demanded.
"You're doubting me?"
"I'm simply asking."
Kartli's brows gathered darkly and there was a hitherto unknown thickness in his voice. "No, you're accusing."
"That's your interpretation, not an accurate one."
Adem Khalif tried to extricate Bravo, to spirit him away from the rising peril. But Bravo shook Khalif off, stood his ground.
The three men formed a triangle at the entrance to the Georgian's shop. Around them were Mikhail Kartli's offspring-four adult sons, built like their father and no less muscular-and the daughter Khalif had spoken to on their way in. There was a different kind of tension now from the one Bravo had observed earlier. Kartli's clients were gone, the ones still needing to do business hustled away moments ago by the eldest son to whom Kartli had given one of his cell phones.
"Irema, your place is at home with your mother," Kartli said to his daughter.
"But, Father-"
Her protestation was cut short as one of her brothers cuffed her on the side of her head. She uttered no sound, but bit her lip until the blood flowed.
Kartli did not reprimand his son. Instead he said to Irema, "Go this instant. You will be punished, but not as severely as if you force me to send your brother as escort."
Irema glared at the brother who had struck her, and then with naked curiosity, momentarily turned her gaze on Bravo. A moment later, avoiding her father's murderous stare, she fled into the maze of the bazaar.
There was red dust in the street. It coated their shoes and the bottoms of their trousers. It had sunk darkly into the creases of their palms, mimicking dried blood. A kind of animal musk was rising with the dust and the tension, the scent of a pair of mountain goats about to lock horns. In the end, only one of them would be left standing, and they both knew it. This was the end that Adem Khalif was working mightily to avoid.
"Obviously, there has been a miscommunication, a misunderstanding," Khalif said in Georgian. "This is not the time to quibble over such trivial matters and, in any event, Mikhail, wouldn't it be wiser to take the discussion inside?"
No one paid him any mind.
"I could have gotten her to talk," Bravo said. "Instead, an attempt was made on her life and now she's lost to us-the opportunity is lost. I don't consider that trivial."
"She was lost through your inexperience," Kartli said imperiously. "You were the one with her in the field."
Bravo swung at Kartli. The Georgian took the blow on his shoulder, grabbed Bravo's wrist and began the process of breaking it.
Bravo slammed his fist into Kartli's stomach to gasps from the onlookers. Released, he inadvisably took a step forward, ran right into a left-handed uppercut from the Georgian that dropped him onto his backside. Kartli came on in a low brawler's crouch. Bravo, half-dazed, waited until as long as he dared, regaining his breath, before he drew Lorenzo Fornarini's dagger.
Kartli froze in mid-stride, but his four sons moved toward Bravo, until the Georgian held up a hand. His blazing eyes were on Bravo, not them.
"Have a care," Kartli said with a strange intensity. "I told you to make damn sure you knew when to use it."
