your head because it's just not the way you want it to be. Then you have to learn to skin the cat another way.'
'Pardon?'
Jenny smiled. 'Sorry. 'There's more than one way to skin a cat.' In American slang the saying refers to a catfish, which is always skinned before cooking. What it means is that there's more than one way to get the job done.'
Camille held out the cigarette and Jenny took another drag before giving it back. 'I don't want to ever again be attracted to a man who can abuse me.'
'What kind of abuse was it?' Jenny asked, as casually as she could with her heart pounding hard in her chest.
'Psychological,' Camille said after a moment. 'And I fell right in line with what he wanted. Mon dieu, what an obedient little girl I was!'
So was I, Jenny thought.
'It's humiliating to think of the traps we fall into, isn't it?' Camille observed.
'Especially because we fall so willingly, because it's so difficult to get out.'
'And even pain isn't enough to extricate us.'
'No. Often, it isn't.' Jenny turned to Camille. 'There was a time I applied to a convent. Can you imagine such a thing? For eight months I studied to take the veil. I was very young, I didn't understand, I had no friends, I was afraid of men, I was sure I didn't fit in.'
'But, my dear, it's clear from what you say that you had no calling.'
'That's what the Mother Superior said when she called me into her office.'
'Lucky for you she was so discerning.' Camille shuddered. 'What a place to end up!'
'I was devastated,' Jenny said. 'I saw it as another failure.'
Camille smiled. 'The failure to understand God is the mark of a clear-eyed pragmatist.'
Jenny laughed. She sat in silence for a time while the taxi rattled on and the radio blasted out staticky music that sounded like two people clashing ash can lids together while screaming at the top of their lungs.
'Down deep,' Jenny said, 'we're all obedient little girls.'
She turned to Camille and, as if on cue, they smiled at each other.
What a perfect idiot you are, Camille thought through her smile. And we have our lovely Dexter to thank for that, don't we? He's the one who picked you up like a bad penny and made you shine again after the abortion-but to what end, darling? So you could be my plaything, so you could assist in the last phase of his destruction: the death of his son. And there were those-Anthony included-who were convinced that Dexter had the gift of second sight, that he could see the future. Her smile widened and a tiny laugh escaped her.
'What's so funny?' Jenny asked.
'I was thinking that we are also bad girls, that we want what we want, that we should have what is due us.'
'Yes, Camille, indeed we should.'
Camille was quiet again, smoking her cigarette down to the end. The taxi had no windshield wipers but the driver, reclined casually in his seat, seemed not to notice as he peered through the rain-stippled windshield. Camille thought briefly of Damon Cornadoro, who had been seated behind them in the last row of the plane to Trabzon. Jenny had seen him, of course, on her way to the bathroom, and had told Camille on her return that she felt that much safer against the forces of the Knights of St. Clement massed against her. Little did she know that it had been Cornadoro who had obtained news of Bravo's next destination from the late, unlamented Father Damaskinos.
Now she was heading into uncharted territory. The Knights had no one in Trabzon-it was not part of their territory. That was when she had phoned Jordan.
'It's all right,' he had assured her. 'Cardinal Canesi and his cabal are using every ounce of influence at their disposal. That means all the priests in the city and its surrounds will be our eyes and ears. I'll download a list of their names and contact numbers to your phone when we're done.'
Crushing out the butt beneath her heel, Camille turned to Jenny and said, 'I know you have secrets, as we all do. Alors, it's your expertise-and quite possibly your contacts-that will enable us to find Bravo and keep track of him now,' she lied. 'I've done as much as I can through Lusignan et Cie's resources, but here in Trabzon, I'm frankly blind.'
She took Jenny's hands in hers. 'In this crisis, we have only each other, we must trust each other or we'll fail Bravo, and we cannot let that happen, n'est-ce pas?'
Jenny leaned forward, delivered instructions to the driver that Camille could not hear. A moment later, the taxi swerved to its left. They zipped past the stripped-out carcass of a car, accelerating in a new direction.
Khalif and Bravo strolled the narrow, twisting streets of the Avrupali Pazari-European Market in Turkish- which was actually run by e'migre's from the former Soviet republics. Russian or Georgian was spoken here, virtually no Turkish. Bare bulbs, strung from lengths of flex, lit up the colorful wares. There were no T-shirts or baseball hats, none of the commercial souvenirs that had become ubiquitous in Florence or Istanbul, more touristed destinations. Here the wares tended toward native crafts, rugs from all over Turkey, the hills of Afghanistan, even Tabriz, hand-beaten copperware, Russian nesting dolls. Dealers in imported vodka, local antiquities, Asian hashish plied their trade.
'As a student of medieval religions you're no doubt disappointed to see what's become of fabled Trebizond, eh?' Adem Khalif said. 'Overrun by ex-Soviet citizens who consider themselves entrepreneurs-they're all chasing capital. It certainly has its amusing side.'
'I can see why you got on so well with my father,' Bravo said, 'he always had a soft spot for philosophers.'
Khalif chuckled. 'Street philosophers, perhaps.'
'I find it interesting that he didn't use you to keep track of the Knights of St. Clement.'
'I didn't say that, exactly, but Dexter was keen to have an ear to the ground at all times, because he knew it's not only the elephant that can run you over.'
'Meaning?'
'The Order is interesting and, in many important ways, useful, but as an outsider looking in it seems to me that its members are too concerned with the Knights of St. Clement and nothing else. Your father wasn't like that, he always had the big picture in mind. The constantly changing nature of the world-be it politics, economics, religion-was his meat. He moved in a far larger world than any of the others.'
It had begun to rain harder again, in glistening silver lines, dots and dashes, like Morse code being broadcast from heaven. They were moving from street to street in a pattern Bravo tried to make sense of, but the labyrinthine twists and turns of the bazaar defeated all his efforts.
'Toward that end, he supplied me with massive amounts of equipment,' Khalif went on. 'Electronic eyes and ears of the most sensitive and sophisticated nature, so that I could record for him all the coded signals that day and night fly through the ether.'
'All of them?'
Khalif nodded. 'Massive amounts-you can't imagine. But he would come and sort all of it out. He knew what he was looking for, of this you can be sure.'
'This wasn't official Order business?'
'Your father's alone.' Khalif lifted a forefinger. 'I'm bringing you to the Order's official representative now, so not a word. If there is any news you should know before you continue, he will have it.'
They had reached a carpet shop. A young Georgian girl, no more than seventeen, was standing outside, hawking the wares. She had a slim body and dark eyes. Her thin hair was pulled back in a ponytail.
'Irema.'
She kissed Khalif on both cheeks as he introduced Bravo.
'Father is inside,' she said in Turkish.
'Is he busy?' Khalif asked.
'Always,' she said with a shrug.
They passed through the narrow doorway, into a dim interior throbbing with Arabic dance music and dust. The walls were hung with carpets, which also lay in neat stacks in a checkerboard pattern across the floor, so that
