The Testament

and every passenger, committing their physiognomy to memory. Returning to her seat, she buckled up.

'I think we're okay,' she said.

'I wonder if the same can be said for Uncle Tony.'

'I wouldn't worry about Anthony, he's extremely capable.'

'So was my father,' Bravo said bitterly.

That silenced her, which, it seemed, was how he wanted it When they had been in the air for some minutes, he took the time to reexamine the items he had discovered in the compartment on his father's boat. He held the gunmetal Zippo lighter in the palm of his hand, slowly turning it over and over.

'When is a Zippo lighter not a Zippo lighter?' Jenny said, trying to reestablish contact.

As if in response to her semiserious question, he pulled off the gunmetal-colored sheath. Inside, stuck into the housing below the wick, was a snapshot of a small boy. It was faded and grainy, but the child's face was plain enough.

'You were such a cute boy,' Jenny said, leaning over.

Without a word, he slid the casing back over the photo, pocketed the Zippo.

'Why d'you think your father hid the photo of you?'

'I haven't the slightest idea.' At once, he knew he'd made a mistake, and in an attempt to assuage her quickening interest, he added, 'It was a complete surprise to me. Didn't Uncle Tony say that sentiment had no place in the Voire Dei?'

'So far as I can tell, Anthony doesn't have a sentimental bone in his body.'

'He loved my father, and he loves me,' Bravo said. 'Anyway, it seems to me that his lack of professional sentiment is an asset.'

Jenny put her head against the seat back. 'It all depends on your point of view.' She closed her eyes.

'Do you think he was right?' Bravo asked suddenly.

'About what?'

'The Testament-and the Quintessence.'

She opened her eyes. 'You don't believe him?' When he didn't answer, she said, 'Your father authenticated it.'

'All by himself.'

She stared at him, then shook her head. 'I don't understand you.'

'My father trained me to be a medieval scholar. That means I've got a healthy dose of skepticism when it comes to purported finds regarding Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary or-'

She leaned over, lowering her voice. 'But this is different, don't you understand? The artifacts came into our possession centuries ago-'

'How did the Order get them, where were they found, who passed them on to whom, these are all questions that need to be answered.'

'Dammit, Bravo, the artifacts aren't being touted on the Internet by some sleazy archeologist out to make a splash. The Vatican has been desperate to get their hands on them-every pope down through the decades gladly would have given his right arm for-'

'I haven't seen either one with my own eyes,' he said doggedly.

'Is that the only thing that will convince you?'

'Frankly, yes.'

She stared at him, wide-eyed. 'Where's your faith, Bravo?'

'Faith is the bane of scholarship,' he said sharply.

'I don't understand. How could Dexter have brought you up without faith?'

He hadn't, of course, Bravo thought, but that faith had been tested, and broken, and he hadn't been able to pick up the pieces since.

'My God,' she said softly, 'you are difficult.' She waited until she was certain he had no intention of responding, then she turned away and closed her eyes again.

Bravo slipped the Zippo into his pocket. One by one, he again examined the other objects, this time in more detail-the two packs of cigarettes he had slit open, the enamel lapel pin of the American flag, the cuff links. Every so often he would nod to himself and his lips would move as if he were talking himself through a complex set of formulae. With the passage of time, the hum of the plane faded into white noise that lulled his fellow passengers to sleep. His seat light, however, remained on. At length, with a kind of reverence, he put his father's effects away. They were far more than effects, of course; each one had a purpose, and he now knew or at the very least could guess those purposes.

He kept the dog-eared notebook on his lap, however, and now he carefully paged through it. In the back, he came upon a section with the curious heading: 'Murray's Ear.' Curious, that is, to everyone who might stumble on the notebook, save Bravo. The words made him smile. Murray was a character his father had made up when Bravo was a little boy. Murray was a seemingly endless font of stories that fascinated the child, but by far his most wondrous characteristic was his ability to produce gold coins from his ear, a piece of magic that never failed . to delight Bravo as Dexter, in the guise of Murray, sat at the side of his bed at night.

Below the 'Murray's Ear' heading was a list of four nonsense words-aetnamin, hansna, ovansiers, irtecta- each followed by a string of eight numbers. He recognized the words immediately as anagrams and at once set to work deciphering them, using the methodology his father had taught him.

When decoded, each spelled out a word in a different ancient language: Latin manentia; Sumerian ashnan; Trapazuntine Greek vessarion; and Turkish ticaret. For a moment, he sat back, studying the words. Their meaning was not readily apparent, even to him.

Then he looked back up at the heading, 'Murray's Ear.' Gold coins-money-of course! Now he recognized Ticaret, the last of the four words, part of Turk Ticaret Bankasi. These were the names of banks in different cities.

He set to work on the number strings. Again using his father's methodology, he printed them out backward, ignoring the numerals '0' and '6,' which his father used as blanks to further confuse any would-be cryptologist. What he was left with was his own birth date and the birth dates of his father, mother, and grandfather. These, he decided, must be the individual accounts in the respective banks.

He did not know whether to be reassured or apprehensive, because either his father had thought of every contingency or, more ominously, he was expecting his son's journey to be both arduous and perilous.

Lost in thought, he put the items away and turned to the Michelin green guide to Venice he had bought at the airport bookstore. He'd been to Venice twice before, once with college friends and once during his tenure at Lusignan et Cie. As he read, he memorized pages here and there, refamiliarizing himself with the city whose history and heritage belonged as much to the East as to the West.

Beside him, Jenny feigned sleep. Paolo Zorzi, her mentor, had taught her from her very first day under his tutelage to look at the big picture. 'There is a tendency, especially in high-tension situations, to narrow your focus,' Zorzi said. 'Of course, naturally enough, you're trying to find the smallest detail out of place. But you must never lose your sense of the big picture, because that is where your sense of right or wrong will come to the fore. If the big picture feels wrong, then you may be certain you'll find a detail out of place.'

All her senses were on high alert. There was something about the big picture that felt wrong. The trouble was, she had no idea what it might be. Too, the entire operation had been designed by Dexter Shaw, and when it came to Dex she knew that she couldn't fully trust her sense of right and wrong. He'd had that effect on her-he'd always had.

Really, she was such an idiot. When he'd come to her to assign her to Bravo, she'd made not one sound of protest. What in the world had she been thinking? Working with Bravo, becoming emotionally involved, was turning out to be the most difficult assignment she'd ever been given. Certainly, it was the thorniest, filled as it was with lies, deceit and dangerous pitfalls that were sure to crop up during virtually every conversation that involved Dex. Had he known this would happen? She couldn't get that deeply disturbing thought out of her mind, because Dex had a curious talent for anticipating the future. She'd seen compelling evidence of it more than once, but when she'd asked him about it, he'd merely shrugged his shoulders. One thing father and son had in common: they held secrets.

Silently, she cursed Dex for getting her into this, then, filled with remorse, was immediately ashamed of herself. Settling deeper into the seat, she tried to will herself to sleep. Her body ached in every place it could ache