Eric Lustbader - The Testament

Camille considered. Trust was what she was soliciting from Jenny, and empathy was the path she had chosen to that trust. If she didn't feel it, Jenny wouldn't either.

"If, as you say, Cornadoro was the target, then it's safe to assume that Bravo was involved in the ambush," Camille said. She had had time to reason out her course of action during the bumper-to-bumper that led up to the police swarming like ants around the aggressively wrecked cars. She had craned her neck to see the blood, without any luck. "He needs to know that Cornadoro escaped and is still on his tail." She thrust her cell phone at Jenny. "Call him and tell him."

Jenny didn't move a muscle. "Me?"

"Why not?"

"You know why not. He still believes I murdered his Uncle Tony, still believes I'm working for the Knights."

"Then now's the time to show him that you're on his side." She gave Jenny a small smile. "My dear, listen, he hasn't believed a word you've told him. He told me so himself." She nodded. "Look, there's Cornadoro's truck up ahead. We haven't a moment to lose, he's already left it. Courage is what's required now. Number three."

"All right." Jenny nodded, took the cell phone. Heart hammering in her chest, she punched in the speed-dial number.

"Camille-"

The sound of his voice struck her like a physical blow. "It's Jenny, Bravo."

"Jenny, I-"

"No, don't hang up." A certain terror gripped her at the thought that she would blow this one chance to prove herself to him. "Listen, listen, I'm with Camille," she said in a rush. "We've been following Cornadoro-"

"You what?"

She winced at his shouted response but pressed on, determined. Courage. "There was an ambush, two cars were involved, I don't know how many men, though you probably do."

"It was a total screwup, Kartli's idea, not mine, but he's dead now-Cornadoro killed him just like he killed Father Mosto and Father Damaskinos."

An indrawn breath was all she could manage. Her head was swimming.

"I know Uncle Tony was the traitor."

"Bravo, Bravo!" She bent over, almost ill with relief. "But how-?"

"Jenny, I have to go. Really."

"Wait, wait! Cornadoro is coming, he's still coming."

"Where are you now?"

"At some huge high-rise housing complex."

Sinope A Blok.

"It's a number," Khalif said, staring at the readouts. "A phone number."

Bravo, his cell phone still cradled in one hand, said, "Cornadoro is here."

Khalif pointed. "Take a look at it while I go tell Bebur."

As he went through the refrigerator door, Bravo took a close look at the number. It wasn't a London number, not even an English number. There were two prefixes: a country code and a city code, and he recognized them both: Munich, Germany. A warning bell went off in his head, a deadness was growing inside him, a sick feeling, intimation of a new and monstrous reality.

Khalif returned, pulling the hidden door shut behind him. "He hasn't seen anything suspicious," Khalif said as he retook his seat. "He said he'd call Djura to warn him."

Bravo hardly heard him. "Give me the overseas code for Munich, Germany," he said, because they would be different here than in England.

He dialed the number, and when he heard the deep male voice on the other end of the line, he felt as if the floor had given way beneath him. Nightmare came rushing at him with a ghoulish grin.

It was Karl Wassersturm's voice he heard in his ear. It was to the Wassersturm brothers that Uncle Tony had been transmitting the rogue code. From his eidetic memory he unspooled part of the conversation he'd had with Camille on their way to St. Malo:

"The Wassersturms were in a rage when their deal was terminated," Camille said in his mind. "Jordan is worried that they're out to take their revenge on you. What's gotten him so upset is that he spent three days in Munich working on another deal with them simply to calm them down."

"He shouldn't have done that; there's no reason to trust them."

Camille laughed. "You know Jordan. If he can get his terms, he'll make a deal with the devil."

But the thing was, what had stuck in Bravo's mind, what he hadn't been able to make sense of, was that Jordan should have known better than to do business with the Wassersturms no matter what kind of terms they offered. They were bad news-tied into illicit arms dealers and, possibly, terrorists-bad to the bone.

"Karl, it's Jordan." He spoke in German, summoned up Jordan's intonation, his French vocal quirks.

"Why are you using this line?" Wassersturm said in his gruff, no-nonsense manner. "We agreed to leave it solely to relay the… information."

Here was the reason, the connection between the Wassersturms and Jordan, revealed in all its ghastly glory.

Grimly, Bravo said, "You missed this month's, didn't you?"

"You know, like clockwork always." The anxiety in Karl Wassersturm's voice was palpable. "You get the information minutes after I pull it off the transmission, almost no delay, that's how you set things up. It isn't my fault, I swear. No transmission came through this month."

"If you're holding out on me, Karl, I swear-"

"But, no, Jordan, absolutely not. The thought never entered my mind. You told me, didn't you? It's your cipher. I don't understand it, you warned me it couldn't be broken, what good would holding out do me?"

"None at all," Bravo said in Jordan Muhlmann's sternest voice. "See you remember that, Karl. I'll be in touch."

He threw the cell phone across the room. Overwhelmed by the personal horror-the unimaginable betrayal-staring him in the face, he put his head in his hands.

Cornadoro's truck was empty when Jenny and Camille pulled up behind it. Jenny, the Witness handgun she had bought from Mikhail Kartli at the ready, got out, made a thorough search. By the time Camille joined her, she had found something interesting.

She hauled the battered metal box out of the well below the truck's front seat. "Look at this," she said, flipping open the too Inside were three layers of theatrical makeup; bits of hair in different colors for eyebrows, mustache, beard; small plastic cases containing colored contact lenses.

Camille fingering the selection of prosthetic noses, chins, cheeks and ears, said, "What does this mean?"

Jenny had already grabbed her phone, was pressing the speed dial over and over, without success. "Shit, he's not answering." She began to sprint toward the high-rise.

Camille knew exactly what the contents of the box meant-she'd seen Damon in a number of his disguises and knew he was an expert at changing his appearance, the reason the Order had never been able to obtain an accurate photo of him. Hurrying after Jenny, Camille considered her options. She could, of course stop Jenny right now, just as she had done in the corridor of the Church of l'Angelo Nicolo`, just before she'd murdered Father Mosto. But that would be the height of folly. She needed Jenny now as the lure to bring Bravo to her. What she didn't need was Damon tramping around, killing people right and left Up to this point, he had been useful, that was true enough but the situation in the field had changed drastically, and any general unable to alter the plan of battle as the fighting saw fit would inevitably go down to defeat.

"My best friend is an actor. I've seen those kits before, Camille said, coming up on Jenny's right shoulder. "I saw what was missing, I think I know what he's going to look like.

Camille had been right, Bravo realized, though in a way she couldn't possibly know. Jordan had, indeed, made a deal with the devil. He hadn't been scammed by Damon Cornadoro-he'd asked for Damon Cornadoro. Jordan, his best friend was a Knight of St. Clement-not simply a Knight but the leader, because he was the architect, he was behind everything-Dexter's murder, the concerted attack on the Haute Cour the pursuit of the Order's cache of secrets.