Eric Lustbader - The Testament

"Uncle Tony-"

"Have faith, Bravo. Have faith."

The police launch rocketed toward them, its speed and noise scattering what was left of the breakfasting birds. Bravo could make out the men aboard, though not yet their individual faces or their uniforms.

He heard a sound then, like the noise wind makes when it catches the rigging of a boat and tautens all its sails. But of course the motorboat had neither rigging nor sails, and then he realized that it was Uncle Tony, who was humming happily to himself. He was in his element, commanding a fast boat, about to go head to head, as it were, with adversaries. This is what he lives for, Bravo thought This is why the Voire Dei drew him like aflame.

The police launch was closing at what Bravo considered alarming speed.

Rule stopped his humming long enough to say, "Hold on," out of the side of his mouth.

Bravo clutched the railing with both hands as Rule shoved the throttle forward and the motoscafo leapt forward. He had an instant's glimpse of the astonishment in the eyes of the policemen aboard the other vessel as the motoscafo suddenly bore down on them, and he felt a shock go through him. Then Rule had turned the wheel hard to starboard. He had threaded the needle with an expert's hand, and the motoscafo veered off with a breathless rush, its port side lifted as it slashed through the water, creating a wave that swept aboard the police launch like a shipload of pirates.

Then they were away, headed northeast, in the general direction of Venice but more closely aimed at another islet whose northern flank presented itself to them to starboard. Bravo, glancing behind them, saw the swamped police launch swinging around, and with a roar it put on all speed to follow them.

"There's something about that boat," Rule said. "It's longer and lower in the water than the launches used by the Venetian police."

"You're right. I recognized a Guardian. That isn't a police launch at all."

Rule nodded. "Zorzi's picked up our trail."

The islet was coming up fast on their right. It was deserted, full of reeds and birds and the clean-sweet smell of decay. They had to be careful now because the water was shallow enough in spots to ground the boats. Long sandbars rose here from the depths of the lagoon to provide feeding grounds for birds as well as natural platforms for clamming.

The sun was fully above the horizon now, looking red and bloated, as if ill with a fever. The light, stronger, shot across the water in wavering lines, making the islet seem farther away than it was. The air was warming quickly, creating a period of disorienting perspectives and bewitching mirages.

"We can't let him stop us," Bravo said, leaning in so he could speak over the engine's heightened bellow. "You've got to get me to Venice."

Rule swung the wheel hard over. "Don't worry," he said grimly. "I mean to take Zorzi out of the picture once and for all."

If Paolo Zorzi were any other kind of man he would have blown a blood vessel by now, but he hadn't worked his way into the upper echelon of the Gnostic Observatines by being impatient or impetuous. "All things in their season" was his unspoken motto, and even in this chaotic moment when the tenuous future hung in the balance, he remained deathly calm. He neither cursed himself nor his crew for having failed to respond adequately to Anthony Rule's kamikazelike tactic, but he did resolve not to allow Rule to surprise them again.

Now, as they once again raced after Rule, he took the wheel himself. Instead of following directly in Rule's wake, he quartered in from the port side, effectively pinning Rule into the shallow passage of water between his oncoming motoscafo and the northernmost corner of the islet up ahead. He grinned as he came on. With each second that passed Rule's options were becoming more limited. Soon, he'd be out of options altogether.

"You see what he's trying to do," Bravo said. "Pin us into grounding ourselves on the shoals close to the islet."

"In this as in all things, he is bound to be disappointed." Rule's voice was low and fierce. The wind had got between his open lips, pulling his cheeks back from his bared teeth.

"But you're heading right for the shallows," Bravo said.

Rule said, "Zorzi will be well pleased for the same reason."

In the deceptive light, he could not make out the distinctions in the color of the lagoon that in late morning through late afternoon mariners used to differentiate the deepwater channels from the shoals that could wreck them. Charts were all well and good elsewhere, but the combination of the changing light and the treacherous tides often rendered the maps useless in all but the few major deepwater passages.

Ahead, Bravo could see the islet coming up fast-the sea fields of quivering reeds, the glistening tide pools, a dark wave, the rising and falling of the birds over their nests, and just beyond, like a series of wavecrests, a pair of barene, salt flats that were actually sandbars, pale as a woman's throat, the smaller one closer. On the one farther from them a dozen or so men stooped, their feet and ankles hidden beneath the water as they went about their morning's work, gathering clams that would be consumed that afternoon and evening in Venice's restaurants.

Rule kept glancing over his left shoulder as if worried about the police launch vectoring in off the port quarter. He kept edging in closer and closer to the islet. The launch, having maintained full speed, had gained on them. Apparently, this was precisely what Rule wanted, for he made no effort to push his own throttle forward. This would be consistent with a captain concerned with grounding his boat.

The police launch was now-by Bravo's admittedly inaccurate estimation-only three boat-lengths behind them. As it had been before, it was all about timing.

"Uncle Tony," Bravo shouted, "they're drawing guns!"

Rule veered abruptly to starboard, seemingly into the heart of the shoals. Bravo shouted again, this time in apprehension.

But instead of grounding, the motoscafo shot forward as Rule now put on speed.

"There's a deepwater channel here," Rule said. "It's unmarked because of how narrow it is. Also, it all but vanishes during the low tides."

Bravo, listening, had turned his body perpendicular to Rule's so that he could look ahead and behind with equal ease. The police launch, having had too short a time to adjust its course fully, had grazed the edge of the sandbar and was now heading in the wrong direction. However, at Zorzi's shouted order, the launch swung around in a tight arc, headed into the channel. It put on all speed as they went through the channel into the open water after the motoscafo.

The police launch must have had a more a powerful engine, because it closed the distance between them with appalling speed.

"They're right on top of us!" Bravo shouted, as the first warning shots were fired across their bow.

The moment Zorzi's motoscafo had first put on speed, Jenny had drawn her legs up through the rushing water-no easy task in and of itself-curling her body into a ball as she tucked her feet into the webbing of the draped line that held the bumper against the side of the boat.

She might have thought it a minor miracle that she hadn't been discovered, except that everyone aboard Zorzi's motoscafo-Zorzi included-was so intent on finding their prey they had no eyes for anything else.

She heard their voices over the engine noise. Occasionally, she could even make out a sentence or two, though she struggled to make sense of what she picked up. Zorzi kept referring to Anthony Rule as "the Traitor," which though wrongheaded was, she supposed, consistent with what he believed. It was the Guardians' responses to him that she found puzzling. They spoke to him as if he and he alone were the head of the Gnostic Observatines.