Eric Lustbader - The Testament

"I've been here three days now, talking to his associates," he said, "and everything seems in order, except for one thing."

Irema stared at him. The thumping of her heart had turned painful-something bad couldn't happen to her father, it couldn't.

"What is the one thing?" she asked in little more than a croak. The grit of fear had parched her throat.

"Earlier today your father had an… altercation with another member of" the Order." His face was stern, scaring her all the more. "This was a very important member of the Order, Irema, very high up in the ruling body."

"Very high up?"

He nodded. "Very. Your father sent him away, refused to give him the help he requested. I have to tell you that this is an extremely serious breach of protocol."

"Protocol?"

"My bosses are pissed off."

"Oh!" She put her hand over her mouth as she giggled delightedly.

"Irema." He took her hand away from her mouth. "This is no laughing matter, I assure you."

"Oh, but it is!" At last her heart was light, and she felt an exhilaration inside herself. She never could have believed it, but hers was the power to exonerate her father from false reports that would have doomed him with the Order. She had overheard enough, had pieced enough together to make a patchwork quilt, and although she had also heard her father tell her brothers numerous times never to tell outsiders family business, she knew this was different. She was helping her father with the people who paid him, who were the source of all the money, all the respect that he had worked so hard for. How could that be wrong? Also, this man and her father were allies. So she told her sweet lover what she knew:

"That altercation was a ruse."

"A ruse?" He rose up on one elbow, his shadowed face hard and craggy. "What do you mean?"

"My father would never be so rude to another member of the Order. I heard him talking on the phone to one of my brothers. It was all faked, in case someone was watching."

"All faked." Her lover lay back, his hand resting on her soft, soft belly. "Ah, Irema, my love. It was all faked."

Once he started to laugh he couldn't stop.

Bravo saw Jenny on the split-level terrace of the Sumela Cafe', with the silver platter of the Black Sea spread out below them. Adem Khalif had taken him here for a late-night dinner. Bravo should have been exhausted, but he wasn't. He had read articles about the so-called adrenaline high soldiers experienced in the heat of battle, but until now he'd had no direct experience with the phenomenon.

Seeing her in profile, bathed in desolate moonlight, he recalled the stricken look on her face during their brief encounter in the bazaar. Then she turned and the nape of her neck was exposed to him, the long sweep, pale in the moonlight, the gentle slope leading to the base of her skull, the fine down of hair, the perfect vulnerable arc. For a moment all his anger, rage and urge for revenge slipped away, and he was left naked, as vulnerable as she seemed, with all his suppressed emotions exposed.

Not only to him, apparently, because Khalif, standing with him shoulder to shoulder, said, "Bravo, what is it? Do you know that woman?" He drew a gun. "She is one of your enemies."

At a table not far away, the bearded Glimmer Twins, still with them, raised their heads. They half rose off their chairs, their upper bodies tilted slightly forward as if they were sprinters at the starting line.

"Pot that away," Bravo said, without looking at Khalif, because Jenny had moved a pace and now he could see that she was with another woman: Camille, his Camille. What in the world was going on?

He began to walk toward the table where the two women sat, chatting as if they were friends-no, something in their attitude convinced him that the connection between them had become more intimate.

"Bravo, do you think this is wise?" Khalif said.

"Stand guard here," Bravo answered him. "Keep your hand on your gun, if you must, but don't try to stop me."

Khalif didn't, and though he was filled with foreboding he waved Mikhail's men to sit back down. He'd heard that tone of voice before, from Dexter Shaw, and he knew better than to interfere.

Camille paused in midsentence, and Jenny saw the woman's eyes shift to a spot behind and just to the right of her. She turned. At the sight of Bravo her heart thudded in her breast and the sudden quick rush of blood to her head made her dizzy. She wanted to rise and hit him, as surely she would have in the bazaar had the bullet from the assassin's gun not struck the merchant beside her. She tasted blood in her mouth, and realized that she had bitten her lip.

"I want to speak with you," he said as he came up. "Now." Her hands balled into fists, but then she realized that it was Camille he was looking at, Camille to whom he had directed his command. He hadn't looked at her, hadn't acknowledged her presence, as if she were a ghost occupying a place in another world.

Camille rose and said, "Of course, my love," leaving her without a backward glance.

Bravo stood with Camille at the edge of the terrace. Low clouds obscured the northern horizon. High above, there was a palely glowing ring around the moon. Down the length of the light-strung terrace he was aware of Adem Khalif slowly sipping a glass of raki, watching them, exuding worry like musk.

As for the Glimmer Twins, his image swam in their dark, avid eyes; they were itching to be needed.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he asked Camille in a ragged voice.

"What do you think? Keeping an eye on you, trying to keep you safe."

"It's you I'm worried about," he said angrily. "You shouldn't be anywhere near here. And certainly not with her."

"Who? Jenny?"

"Yes, Jenny. She's murdered three people: two priests and Uncle Tony. Are you out of your mind?"

"Listen to me, my love, you have to stop thinking of me as a helpless female." She shook out a cigarette, lit it, regarded him through the veil of aromatic smoke. "I wouldn't be here if I wasn't more than capable of taking care of myself." She blew out a spiral of smoke. "As for Jenny, you know what Sun Tzu wrote: 'Keep your friends close, your enemies closer.'" She looked at Jenny, smiled reassuringly into her face, before turning back.

"Sun Tzu had something else to say about the art of war," Bravo said. "Every battle is lost or won before it begins."

"Meaning?"

"If you don't know, you surely don't belong here."

"Ah, Bravo," she chuckled, "always testing me."

A breeze rose up from the coolness of the water, stirring her hair against her cheek. Music, trafficking in high spirits and a lover's touch, insinuated itself onto the terrace, reminding them how far removed they were from the rest of the world.

"I was prepared for this the moment I left Paris." She eyed him speculatively. "You think not?"

"I think it's damn odd you being here."

"Do you suspect me now? Of what?" She dropped her cigarette, ground it beneath her heel. "Dammit, Bravo, if I didn't love you so much I'd slap you. You're like a son to me. I mean to protect you, something Jenny only pretended to do."

Bravo rubbed the side of his head. He was exhausted, both physically and emotionally. His head pounded with a million different strands, possible paths he might take, he ought to take. The specters of what lay at the end of those paths haunted him day and night.

"Listen, we're friends now, Jenny and I," Camille said in a softer tone. "We're close, and getting closer. I know how to gain her trust, woman to woman. She tells me things."

"No doubt. Like she's innocent."

"Of course, but who's listening?"

"She's guilty as sin-and she's dangerous."

"I allow her to think I believe her, she lets down her guard. Perhaps tomorrow I'll know part of her plan."