Eric Lustbader - The Testament

He saw Jenny again as she had been on the restaurant terrace in Trabzon, the elegant sweep of her neck exposed, cooled by moonlight to the color of alabaster. He recalled with a guilty ache how he had deliberately snubbed her in order to warn Camille about her and Damon Cornadoro. Most of all, his own shameful threat echoed in the theater of his mind: "If you try to follow me, if I see you again, I'll kill you."

"Of course she shot Uncle Tony," he said now. "Knowing he was the traitor, seeing him shoot my mentor to death, I would have done the same thing." But what about Father Mosto and Father Damaskinos? he asked himself. Did she kill them or had she been set up ?

"Dad found out Uncle Tony was the traitor, that was the breakthrough he talked about." Emma was working it out as she spoke. "All he was lacking was rock-solid proof, which is where I came in."

"Tony's plan was brilliant, don't you agree? No need for dead-drops or unexplained trips, no deviation whatsoever in his normal patterns." He thought for a moment. "Have you discovered where the cipher was going when it was pulled off the electronic transmissions?"

"I would have to have copies of the real-time transmissions," Emma said. "All I was able to do, after tons of sifting too tedious to go into, was compare the transmissions at the point of origin and the point of destination. That's how I came up with the discrepancy."

"Can you send the cipher to my cell phone?"

"That I can do."

"Along with the frequency Uncle Tony used to send the transmissions."

"They varied week to week, but I can send you a list."

"Good," Bravo said. "Do it now."

"You have an idea, don't you?"

Khalif got out of the car, an anxious look on his face. He was gesturing back toward the car, the Glimmer Twins were no doubt itching to fire their Tac-50s.

"I think I do."

"You keep sounding more and more like Dad."

Why did everyone tell him that? "Emma, I have to go."

"Wait, Bravo-there's something else I found out, something you should know. Dad was involved with Jenny."

Bravo closed his eyes. He didn't want to hear confirmation of Father Mosto's suspicions, and yet he heard himself say, "Involved how?"

"I… I don't really know. But it's a fact that he rented an apartment for her in London."

"How long did he keep her?"

"Bravo, please calm down. There's no hard evidence he had an affair with her."

Bravo pressed his thumb and forefinger into his eyelids to try to stop the vicious headache that had erupted behind his eyes. "How long, Emma?"

"Eleven months."

"Jesus. He was keeping her."

Silence. So he issued the challenge: "Give me another explanation, Emma."

More silence. Khalif had begun walking toward him.

"I really do have to go."

"I know. Stay safe, Bravo."

"You too."

"Keep me posted." Her laugh had a stinging ironic edge. "I don't like being in the dark."

"Neither do I." Were those tears in his eyes? "Thanks for the due diligence, from me and from Dad."

Bravo, walking back to the car, met Adem Khalif halfway. "You told me that my father liked to have his ear to the ground, that you were his eyes and ears in the Middle East." Consulting the text message that had appeared on the screen of his cell phone, he showed Khalif the list of numbers. "Did you monitor and record traffic on any of these frequencies?"

Khalif squinted into the small screen. "There are too many here. We'd have to go to my office to check."

"Despite what those two are thinking," Bravo said with absolute assuredness, "we have to go there now."

"Bravo, I have to repeat what you've already said: it's not a good idea to deviate from the original plan."

"Too late for that," Bravo said grimly. "Your friend Kartli already blew the plan to kingdom come."

Khalif's office was two-thirds up the steep Trapezuntine hillside, an apartment in a modern high-rise, one of five identical balconied towers, white proletarian milk cartons, known as Sinope A Blok. A winding drive led up to the main entrance. On either side of the black asphalt, sheared cypresses were ranked like saluting Soviet militiamen. Pink Colchian crocuses, thinly planted as if in afterthought or in grudging protest, waved in wan greeting. While Bravo and Khalif sat uncomfortably in the ticking car, the Glimmer Twins reconnoitered the property, moving in and out of the scimitar shadows of the rustling trees. Of particular interest to them were the maintenance men high up on movable scaffolding, sandblasting the side of the building.

"I don't know how anyone lives here," Khalif commented, "the construction is Soviet style, so poor they're always having to replace sections of the facades or reface entire lines of terraces."

He shook out a cigarette, lit up. Snorting smoke, he said, "Don't worry about those two, you can trust them with your life."

"Even the one with the broken nose?"

"You're thinking like an American." Khalif picked a fleck of tobacco off the tip of his tongue. "You surprised Djura. Before you attacked him, he was certain you were a coward. The pain means nothing to him, but your decisiveness does."

Bebur appeared, a cell phone clutched in one hand, a Mauser in the other. He was ashen faced.

"You've found someone?" Khalif asked. "What's happened?"

"It's Mikhail," Bebur said in an eerie monotone. "He's been killed, murdered late last night in our church, along with one of the priests." His expression was fixed and concentrated, his back ramrod straight, his stance wide, his limbs slightly flexed, his hands open and at the ready. In short, he was a soldier who'd received a field promotion. "His wife awoke to discover he hadn't come home last night. That in itself was not alarming, but when he failed to appear at the shop, failed to answer his cell, his sons called around and went to the church. Understandably, they are in a frenzy."

Bravo got out of the car. "Who did it?" Standing, facing Bebur, he looked at him as if for the first time, soldier to soldier. "Who killed Kartli?"

"Damon Comadoro."

Khalif tossed his cigarette out the window, slid out from behind the wheel to stand beside Bravo. "You know this for a fact?" he said.

Bebur nodded. "Both of them were finished with a push-dagger. Cornadoro's signature." He turned as Djura trotted up.

"All clear," Djura said. "So far."

Bravo started. "Did you say a push-dagger?"

Bebur nodded. "Yes, you can tell-"

"I know, the push-dagger is made for stabbing, so its slash wound is unique." Kartli had told him when he'd relayed the news of Father Damaskinos's murder. "His throat was slashed in a very particular manner," Kartli had said. "It was made with a push-dagger. I know someone who kills in this manner; he's a Knight of St. Clement assassin."

The last piece of the maddening puzzle fell into place. "Damon Cornadoro," Bravo said.

The three of them were staring intently at him.

"What?" Khalif said.

"It wasn't Jenny who killed Father Damaskinos in Venice, it was Cornadoro." Now he had his proof, she'd been telling the truth all along. He recalled her stricken expression when he'd told her that Father Damaskinos was dead. He'd been so angry he'd automatically assumed she'd been playing a part. Now he knew her reaction had been genuine. Logic led him back to Father Mosto. Jenny had claimed that she'd been framed for his murder. Cornadoro was more than capable of such a scheme, and he'd been in Venice at the time of Father Mosto's demise.

Bebur said now, "Mikhail's sons demand immediate revenge."

"They wanted us back at the shop for instructions." Djura looked Bravo in the eye. "Now we will do what we have to do, with no interference from you."

"Cornadoro is smart, very smart, you know this," Bravo said. "Killing him was never going to be easy, but now that he knows our intent, you'd be fools to confront him directly."