The testament, p.41
The Testament, page 41
As Bravo's fist tightened on the dagger's hilt, Khalif intervened again. "Listen, both of you, if the Order is divided against itself, then, truly, all is lost."
Kartli sneered. "He comes here, this American, with his hand out, asking for help. Then, in the same breath, he orders me to crouch at his side like a dog, then he accuses me. Like a dog, he strikes me, expecting that I should happily grovel before him." He spat heavily. "Should any of this be a surprise to me? The day dawns when the horns of the rampaging beast will gore even the most prudent of onlookers. This is the American way, isn't it, all over the world."
"This is the Voire Dei, Kartli, we're both-"
The Georgian cursed in Georgian and in Turkish. "What do I say to someone whose government has allied itself to the Moscow criminals who continue to persecute my people without mercy?"
"For the love of God-"
"Another point that must be clarified, American-whose God do you invoke, mine or yours?"
"We're both human beings."
"But we're not equal, are we? You wish to use me, just as your government uses the Russians for their own end."
Adem Khalif said quietly but urgently, "Mikhail, after all, Bravo is the Keeper, it's your duty to protect and to help him."
"Such arrogance in a Keeper. And now you side with him." Kartli hawked and spat into the dirt.
Bravo, grief and frustration once again flaring into anger, began to advance on Kartli, but Khalif grabbed him, held him back with a grip like iron.
"Don't do this," he whispered in Bravo's ear. "I warned you, this man is very dangerous, easily provoked." To the Georgian, he said, "Since when have you known me to take sides? I, who have broken bread with you, who have changed your children's diapers, who have sat in counsel with you. We are friends, Mikhail. Friends."
"Then back away from the American."
"Only to see you kill him," Adem Khalif said sadly.
"He drew a weapon in my house. He has committed a mortal offense."
"You were friends with his father."
"Dexter Shaw is dead," the Georgian said. "My obligation died with him."
"But the Order, your vows-"
"I have taken enough from these people." Kartli's hand flashed down. "It is finished."
"At least allow him to walk away," Adem Khalif said. "The death of Dexter Shaw's son will be a heavy weight to bear."
"Let him go, and step back," Kartli said simply.
Khalif did as he was told, but not before he managed to whisper in Bravo's ear, "Sheath the dagger and wait… Wait."
And there Bravo stood, the dagger sheathed, alone, waiting. A terrible silence strangled them, the furious bustle of the street faded away as if it had never existed. And all the while the Georgian's eyes never left Bravo's. There seemed to ensue a curious contest of wills, silent, lethal.
Very slowly, Bravo pulled out the scabbarded dagger, held it out, an offering to propitiate Mikhail Kartli or, perhaps, his god.
"You seek to buy me off," the Georgian said. "How American."
"There is no price on this dagger," Bravo said. "It is yours."
Kartli shook his head, as if at something infinitely sad. "No, Keeper, where you travel you will need it."
Bravo lowered the dagger.
"Go now," Mikhail Kartli said.
Bravo turned, saw that Khalif made no move to go with him. The circle of the Georgian's sons parted as he neared it.
Just before he stepped outside the ring, leaving the Georgian's aegis forever, out into the streets of Trabzon, Mikhail Kartli said, "Pray to whatever god it is that moves you, for without him you are truly lost."
Chapter 25
Bravo sat in the same cafe' on the hill in the Ortahisar quarter where he had first met Adem Khalif, hoping that if he stayed long enough the Turk would come. The cafe smelled of burnt cigarettes and cat urine, but the coffee was thick and strong. From his tiny table he had an excellent view of the main arteries of the Old City, the ravines in which all light was absorbed. He realized that he could not bear to be in any section of the new city, grown like a gross shell around the jewel of long-lost Trebizond. He wanted to recapture that fabled city, wanted to walk its streets, hear the regal sound of Trapazuntine Greek being spoken, watch the stately round ships sailing in from Florence or Venice, Cadiz or Bruges, ready to take on the exotic cargoes waiting for them in Trebizond's bursting warehouses. And on the horizon, the sinister slash of the black sails, the threat of the Seljuk pirates. He pulled out his cell phone. In the middle of dialing Jordan's number, he stopped. Jordan was his closest friend in the world. Bravo had already asked him for help and Jordan had generously agreed, but now it was too dangerous to involve him further. Bravo knew he didn't want to endanger anyone else, especially his friend.
He put his head in his heads. He wanted another life, or at least to roll back the clock. He pictured himself standing on the corner of Sixth Avenue in New York, watching his father walk away. If only he'd gone after him. But, really, what good would it have done? Delayed what was already set in motion, nothing more. It was dispiriting, the idea that he'd been helpless, trapped like a cog in a huge machine, grinding forward with inexorable precision…
"It's time to see your grandfather, Bravo."
He looked up, saw his father's weather-beaten face. They were in their house in Greenwich Village and he was nine years old.
"I know you don't want to go."
"How d'you know that?" Bravo said.
"Because you just asked Mom if you could help her dry the breakfast dishes."
Bravo set down the dish towel. He knew his father had made a joke, but just then it didn't seem all that funny.
Dexter put a hand on his son's shoulder. "Your grandfather wants to see you, he asked about you specially this morning."
"Doesn't he want to see Junior?" Bravo asked, thinking misery loves company. Emma was far too young to be brought to the nursing home.
"Junior's not feeling well," Dexter said.
That wasn't it at all, and Bravo knew it. He'd overheard his parents talking about it several weeks before. They'd deemed Junior too young to go, a decision that only added to Bravo's resentment.
The drive to the nursing home wasn't short, but to Bravo it seemed to take three minutes. Fleets of semis rumbled, factories belched smoke, and he had to roll up the window so as not to be overcome by the reek of chemical waste that smelled like burnt tires and cat piss.
The nursing home, somewhere in the unfathomable hinterlands of New Jersey, was a large Georgian redbrick building that seemed like one of those thoroughly unpleasant London institutions Dickens so brilliantly described. Bravo sat in the car, listening to the hot engine tick over like a mechanical heart, waiting for it to slow and, finally, stop. He stared straight ahead even after his father had clambered out, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"Bravo?" Dexter opened the passenger's-side door and held out his hand.
Bravo, in his own way resigned, took it, and together they went up the cement walk to the front door. Just before it opened, Dexter said, "You love your grandfather, don't you?"
Bravo nodded.
"That's all you need think about, okay?"
Bravo nodded again, not trusting himself to reply.
The smell inside the nursing home was unspeakable. Bravo tried to hold his breath, just as he always did, but it was no use. He inhaled and felt himself gagging before he was able to settle his system down.
They found Conrad Shaw in the solarium, amid bright sunlight and the unnatural humidity of hothouse flowers and potted plants. As usual, he'd ordered his wheelchair to be set as far away from the other patients as possible. He was bald now, though up until ten years ago he'd had a thick shock of white hair of which he'd been inordinately proud. His thin flesh, speckled as a robin's egg, was carved by age and disease so close to the skull that it had taken on the color of the bone beneath. Once, he'd been a big man, robust and reckless, dapper and possessed of a raucous laugh he dispensed with great generosity.
The pity was that these gifts had been snatched from him all at once. The stroke that had felled him had been a serious one. Now his heart was damaged and he wore a pacemaker. His legs were useless, as was the right side of his body. His features sagged horribly, as if he was subject to a gravitational force of extraterrestrial virulence.
He had not adjusted well to his altered circumstance. It was as if all joy had been squeezed out of him. If he was pleased to see his grandson there was no way for Bravo to tell. His grandfather fixed him with his one good eye, gripped him with his one good arm in what Bravo came to think of as a death grip, as afterward he regarded the bruise.
"How are you, Grandpa?" Bravo asked.
"Where's my pipe, boy? What did you do with my pipe?"
"I haven't seen your pipe, Grandpa." Bravo wiped a bit of spittle from the flaky corner of his grandfather's mouth.
"Don't do that!" Conrad let fly the back of his good hand. "Broke it, did you?" He pinched Bravo's arm hard, his fingers like steel pincers. "Deliberate disobedience, knowing you."
"Dad, Bravo didn't take your pipe. You lost it last year," Dexter said, gently extricating his son.
"Lost, my ass," Conrad snorted. "I know when something of mine's been stolen."
Dexter closed his eyes for a moment, and Bravo could almost hear him silently counting to ten. "Forget the pipe, Dad, you know you can't smoke anymore." Dexter affixed a smile to his face and using his most diplomatic voice, said, "I know you're happy to see Bravo, you asked for him this morning."
"I asked for coffee with half-and-half this morning," the old man said irascibly. "If you think I got it you don't know a damn thing about this hellhole. It's a toilet masquerading as a hotel."
Every time Conrad saw Dexter, he begged his son to end his life. This was why Dexter had taken to bringing Bravo with him. The old man would never consider voicing his request while Bravo was around.
Bravo didn't react so much to the frighteningly swift decrepitude that had come upon his grandfather as to the terror, unvoiced but felt as only a child can feel it, of the old man's death wish. He deeply hated being dragged here against his will, having to see the waste that disease inflicts on even the strongest, most capable of men, of being hauled into close proximity with death when he did not even understand what death was.
"I don't want to go back there ever again," he said on the way home.
"That's what you say every time." Dexter's voice was deliberately light, as if they were bantering about some beloved topic.
"This time I mean it, Dad," Bravo said as forcefully as he knew how.
"Your grandfather doesn't mean any of those things he says, Bravo. You know that inside he's happy to see you."
Bravo looked away.
"What is it?"
Again, silence.
"C'mon," Dexter urged. "You can tell me anything, you know that."
"I don't want to die."
Dexter gave him a quick look full of fatherly concern. "You're not going to die, Bravo. Not for a long, long time."
"But Grandpa will."
"All the more reason for you to see him, as often as possible. I want you to remember-"
Bravo, in a sudden rage fueled by grief and frustration, shouted, "Remember what? A walking skeleton, something out of a nightmare?"
Dexter signaled and pulled over into the breakdown lane, where he stopped the car. Turning to his son, he said, "No matter how your grandfather looks now, he's the same inside, he's a man who has accomplished great things. He deserves your attention and your respect."
With a child's clear access to the truth, Bravo said, "I don't think he's the same inside."
This brought Dexter up short. He turned his head, one arm draped over the wheel, watched the lines of cars and trucks whizzing by. The car rocked in the fluted edge of their slipstream.
"You're right." Dexter Shaw sighed. "I've been fighting against it, but my father isn't the same inside, he's been brought low."
It was the first time Bravo had seen his father cry. It wouldn't be the last.
Bravo put his hand on his father's shoulder. "It's okay, Dad."
"No, it's not. I shouldn't be taking you every week. It's selfish."
"Hey, Dad-"
"My father was everything to me. To see him like this…" Dexter shook his head. "But these are the consequences of life, Bravo. One has to own up to them, take them like a man."
"Then we will."
Dexter Shaw looked at his son.
"I mean, we're together, right?" The nine-year-old Bravo flashed a courageous smile. "We're men, right?"
Like a cool breath on his cheek, Bravo felt his father's departure, and he opened his eyes. The light had lowered, the lengthening shadows were the color of lapis. Still no sign of Khalif, and now Bravo knew that he wouldn't come. His coffee was cold and he called for another, along with something to eat. "Anything but pulpo," he told the waiter. He was up to here with octopus.
It was a mistake to have picked a fight with Mikhail Kartli. The imprudence of it shocked him even now. But there are times when control goes out the window and then you simply have to make the best of a bad situation. Take the consequences like a man.
His coffee came and he drank a bit of it, burning the tip of his tongue. With a clatter, he put the cup down and called Emma. He was eight hours ahead of New York. By all rights, he should have woken her up, but she answered immediately and there was no trace of sleep in her voice.
"My God, Bravo, where have you been? I've been trying you for the better part of a day."
"Out of cell range, obviously. Listen, I found the mole."
"You did? Who is it?"
"Was. Paolo Zorzi. He's dead."
"Zorzi?" There was silence for a moment, then Emma said, "I don't know."
"What d'you mean? He was one of the names on the list Dad made. Father Mosto showed it to me in Venice."
"Ah, Bravo. That list was one of Dad's ploys, nothing but disinformation, in case it somehow fell into the hands of a Knight."
He sat up straight. "You're joking, right?"
"Think about it a minute. This is Dad we're talking about. Do you really think he'd leave a list of suspects lying around, especially an unencrypted one?"
Bravo's head had begun to pound. "But Zorzi had me beaten, captured… Are you telling me he wasn't the traitor?"
"No. What I'm saying is we can't be sure. The only list Dad compiled was in his head."
"But you were doing research for him. You know all the suspects. Was Zorzi one of them?"
"At one point, yes."
A cold ball of fear was congealing in Bravo's stomach. "What does that mean?"
"About a month before he was killed Dad had me stop all the background intelligence I was digging up."
"Why?"
"That's what I asked him. All he'd say was that he'd made a breakthrough, that he had to do the rest of it alone. I begged him to let me help, but he was adamant. You know how hard-headed Dad could be."
He certainly did know. "But why all of a sudden did he cut you out?"
"I've tried a dozen theories. None of them makes sense."
"What," Bravo said, "if the breakthrough involved a new suspect very close to Dad?"
"But why would he-?"
"Someone he didn't want you to know about-especially that he was very close to her."
"Her?"
"Jenny Logan-the Guardian. No wonder Zorzi was a prior suspect; it was one of his people who was the mole. She probably left clues leading Dad back to him. But it didn't work-or at least, not for long. I think he assigned her to me hoping she'd trip her hand conclusively and I'd find her out. Which is exactly what's happened."
"I don't know, Bravo, that's a lot of danger to expose you to."
"No more than what he'd been training me for."
"Still, it was a monumental gamble on his part, don't you think?"
"The stakes are high, Emma, I don't have to tell you that." He thought a moment. "What were you doing for Dad after he pulled you off the background checks?"
"Nothing all that important. Checking the Order's audio logs of their London-based intel. Honestly, I don't know why he wanted it vetted."
"Me neither," Bravo said. "But you know Dad, somewhere there was a reason. Can you manage-?"
"Blind, you mean? I've been trying to tell you since you called but you kept laying bombshells on me. Some of my sight has come back."
He let out a whoop of delight. "Emma, that's fantastic!"
"It's only in one eye so far and my vision's not that great, especially distances. It may never be, the doctors tell me. But I can see the computer screen well enough, especially with the great hulking magnifying lens I had made."
"Then you can continue vetting the London audio intel."
"But it's sooo boring," Emma moaned in her most theatrical voice.
"Look, I've recently discovered that Dad was working on fundamentalist movements in and around the Middle East. There's a long history of fundamentalist training and staging activity in London, as you know, so while what he's asked you to do might seem boring, it could have very serious implications."
"Okay, okay, you've sold me, but promise me you'll stay in touch more often. Where are you, by the way?"
"Best not to tell you."
She laughed. "Now you sound just like Dad."
"Get cracking on that London intel."
"Right. Take care of yourself."
"Emma, I love you."
He severed the line and put the cell phone away. By that time the food had come. He ate without tasting a thing. With the information about Emma and Jenny buzzing in his head he didn't know whether to laugh or to cry.
The light was fading. Along Trabzon's crescent shoreline the sea was zebra-striped. Boats lay at anchor or in their slips, rocking gently as if they were children drifting off to sleep. In the heart of the Old City, Damon Cornadoro turned a corner, went down the block toward Mikhail Kartli's carpet shop. He had his orders and, like all loyal soldiers, he would carry them out to the best of his abilities, and he would succeed. With all the bewildering variables in the world, Cornadoro was grateful that his skills weren't one of them. He was absolutely confident in himself. He did not, like others, feel fear. The sensation was unknown to him-ever since, on a dare, he had stuck his arm in the flames of a Venetian street fire. He had been sixteen at the time, but street-smart beyond his years. Though a scion of one of the Case Vecchie, he preferred to slum. When he'd been challenged, he knew just what to do. He'd turned away, rolled up his sleeves and rubbed his hands together, as if preparing himself for the ordeal. In fact, that was precisely what he was doing, though not in the way any of the onlookers understood. He was coating his right arm with axle grease.
