Eric Lustbader - The Testament

"I've heard that."

"If, as you say, he led you to Jenny, then you can be quite certain there was a reason."

Bravo shrugged. "She's the best Guardian."

"She's not, but leaving that aside for the moment, even if she was, he brought you to her for another reason, something he felt or saw, something to do with the future he knew he was not going to live to see."

Bravo stared at him wide-eyed.

"You can't be serious."

"Oh, I'm perfectly serious, Braverman."

"I would not have taken you for a mystic."

"I believe in good and evil, in the immortality of the spirit, in God's strict hierarchical order. Mystics believe in good and evil, in the immortality of the spirit, in a higher power and in a strict hierarchical order of things, so in the most fundamental sense I do not think that we are so very far apart."

"The Church would view you as a heretic."

"And burn me at the stake? Three hundred years ago, I daresay they would have tried," Father Mosto said flatly. "But consider: both the priest and the mystic are aware that there is far more to this world than man and man's creations. I respect that, and so should you." He pursed his lips. "Where is your faith, Braverman?"

The echo of Jenny's question was like a shot across Bravo's bow and, shamed by his inability to answer such a vital question, he remained silent.

After a thoughtful pause, Father Mosto continued. "In any event, it is vitally important that you keep what I just said about your father's prescience in mind as you move forward through the labyrinth he created for you. That's how you see it, isn't it? A labyrinth."

Bravo nodded.

"Good. Because that's just what it is. A labyrinth to trap the unwary and the deceitful as you make your way through it. I knew your father well. I believe with all my heart and soul that he built this labyrinth to withstand every possibility. It sounds improbable-impossible, even-but as close as you may have been to Dexter Shaw, you couldn't have known him as I did. His mind-well, it didn't work like yours or mine, I assure you."

"I know, he and I had a cipher game that he created-"

"I'm speaking neither of ciphers nor of games, Braverman," Father Mosto said sternly.

Something in the priest's tone warned Bravo, and he leaned slightly forward, concentrating his entire being on what was being said. Father Mosto became aware of this and, so far as he was able, appeared pleased.

"As I said, your father was prescient. He became aware of the traitor inside the Order before any of us. In fact, in the beginning, some of them foolishly disbelieved him."

"But not you."

"No. He spoke to me about his suspicions first."

"Did he tell you who he suspected?"

"No, but I'm convinced that he knew."

"Then why didn't he act?"

"Because," the priest said, "I think he was afraid."

"Afraid? My father wasn't afraid of anything." Into the silence that ensued, Bravo said, "What was he afraid of?"

"The traitor's identity. I think it shook his confidence in his own abilities. It was someone he knew well and trusted completely" Father Mosto produced a folded slip of paper from his robes.

Bravo took it. "What's this?"

"The list," Father Mosto said, "of suspects."

Bravo opened it, scanned the names. "Paolo Zorzi's name is on here." And then the breath caught in his throat. "So is Jenny's." He frowned. "You said the traitor was someone he knew well and had trusted completely."

The priest nodded. "Dexter and Jenny had… some sort of relationship."

"Of course, they worked together."

Father Mosto shook his head. "Their relationship went beyond the professional," he said. "It was both personal and intimate."

There was something thrilling, Camille Muhlmann thought, about dressing in men's clothes-and a priest's at that! Her breasts were bound, and there was padding around her waist to make her look portly beneath the robes. Giancarlo, one of Cornadoro's people, had assumed that neutered ecclesiastical expression so familiar to her the moment he had slipped into the robes. But then it was Cornadoro's contention that Giancarlo wanted to be an actor.

"He's a film whore," Cornadoro had complained when she had announced her intention to use Giancarlo instead of him. "Whenever the American film crews come to Venice he's always following them around like a dog begging for a handout."

"Is he reliable?" she had asked.

"Of course he is, otherwise I would have kicked him out on his ass months ago."

It hadn't been difficult to ignore Cornadoro's rant. Giancarlo was expendable and Cornadoro wasn't, it was as simple as that, a mathematical equation she had come to with a minimum of effort.

The thrill of being a man had mounted as she and Giancarlo had walked down the north transept of the Church of l'Angelo Nicolo`, watching the unsuspecting Bravo and Jenny as they stood near the gemel window. Bound and padded, she felt as if she was a knight in armor, impatient for the battle to commence, and a fierce joy shot through her like a boom of thunder.

She and Giancarlo had waited in the shadow of the white marble statue of Jesus, watching as Father Mosto led the pair back toward the rectory. They had set off after them at a discreet distance and on a more or less parallel path.

Now they were almost at the doorway in the mural when another priest materialized seemingly out of nowhere. He was very old and had long white hair and a scraggly beard badly in need of trimming. As he approached them, his black eyes seemed to pierce her to the quick, so that uncharacteristically she had a moment of panic, convinced that he'd seen beneath her disguise and had unveiled her as a woman. But then he passed on as if he had never seen them, and at last they were free to pull open the door and follow Father Mosto to his lair.

In the reeking stone corridor, she caught sight of Jenny outside the closed door to the rectory. She whispered terse instructions and, nodding, Giancarlo brushed by her.

She watched as he approached Jenny, nodding. Then he had passed on and she removed her shoes. When he was five or so paces beyond Jenny, he turned and seemed to ask her a question, "What are you doing here?" perhaps. It was, Camille had told him, imperative that he immediately put Jenny on the defensive so that she had no choice but to respond, engage him in conversation, narrowing her attention.

As Jenny turned to answer him, Camille flew down the corridor, her bare feet making no sound at all. As she came on, she calculated both the angle of the blow and the power to put behind it. Her eyes were focused on the occiput bone at the base of Jenny's skull, and this is where she struck Jenny, planting her feet, twisting from the hip, the power behind the blow coming all the way from her tensed right thigh, up through her pelvis and torso, infusing her right arm with just the right amount of strength to knock her unconscious.

She was prepared, catching the collapsing Jenny in her arms. She became aware of Giancarlo coming to help her with her burden, but she shook her head, and he stopped, waiting, patient as a dog.

For a moment she had Jenny to herself, back against her bound breasts, lolling head on her shoulder, throat exposed. It was a terribly intimate moment. She put one hand gently against Jenny's neck. Feeling the slow throb of the carotid artery, she extended a forefinger as if it were the blade of a knife. It would be so easy to end her life right here, right now, she thought. But that would be a mistake. The Order would only send another Guardian-one she didn't know-and the meticulous psychological process she had set in motion would have to begin again. This they could not afford. Jordan was under enormous time pressure from Cardinal Canesi to produce the Quintessence and the Testament. If they failed, their entire power base would be jeopardized, perhaps irrevocably. No, her way was the right way, of this she was certain.