Eric Lustbader - The Testament

"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."