manner of articulated interrogation in mind to make you talk.' Her eyes found his, and the part of himself that loved her still shied away from her challenge, disengaging at the last instant, so that a stranger with his mouth said: 'In other words, torture.'
Jenny was stricken, felled as if by a bolt of lightning. 'How can you-? God in heaven, how can you even contemplate such a monstrous thing? I'll fight you tooth and nail right here, you know that.'
Something buzzed past her cheek, soft as a moth, causing her to gasp, take an involuntary step back. Just beyond her reach, the portly Turk lost control of the kettle, his arms splayed out, pitching forward into the copper merchant as the bullet caught him between the shoulder blades.
Instantly, the market erupted into a tsunami of shouts, gesticulations and pounding feet. People ran in every direction. The melee flung Bravo and Jenny apart, and Jenny took the opportunity to sprint away into the crowd. There was no point in attempting to follow her, for she was soon lost to his sight and he was borne away on the rising tide of panic.
'You told me-'
'I am a man of my word,' Mikhail Kartli said firmly.
'And yet one of your men tried to kill her.'
The Georgian stood with his arms crossed. A tattoo of a hawk with open wings showed on the inside of one wrist, a controlled burst of colors on the brown flesh. 'Correction. Not one of my men.'
'Then who?' Bravo demanded.
'You're doubting me?'
'I'm simply asking.'
Kartli's brows gathered darkly and there was a hitherto unknown thickness in his voice. 'No, you're accusing.'
'That's your interpretation, not an accurate one.'
Adem Khalif tried to extricate Bravo, to spirit him away from the rising peril. But Bravo shook Khalif off, stood his ground.
The three men formed a triangle at the entrance to the Georgian's shop. Around them were Mikhail Kartli's offspring-four adult sons, built like their father and no less muscular-and the daughter Khalif had spoken to on their way in. There was a different kind of tension now from the one Bravo had observed earlier. Kartli's clients were gone, the ones still needing to do business hustled away moments ago by the eldest son to whom Kartli had given one of his cell phones.
'Irema, your place is at home with your mother,' Kartli said to his daughter.
'But, Father-'
Her protestation was cut short as one of her brothers cuffed her on the side of her head. She uttered no sound, but bit her lip until the blood flowed.
Kartli did not reprimand his son. Instead he said to Irema, 'Go this instant. You will be punished, but not as severely as if you force me to send your brother as escort.'
Irema glared at the brother who had struck her, and then with naked curiosity, momentarily turned her gaze on Bravo. A moment later, avoiding her father's murderous stare, she fled into the maze of the bazaar.
There was red dust in the street. It coated their shoes and the bottoms of their trousers. It had sunk darkly into the creases of their palms, mimicking dried blood. A kind of animal musk was rising with the dust and the tension, the scent of a pair of mountain goats about to lock horns. In the end, only one of them would be left standing, and they both knew it. This was the end that Adem Khalif was working mightily to avoid.
'Obviously, there has been a miscommunication, a misunderstanding,' Khalif said in Georgian. 'This is not the time to quibble over such trivial matters and, in any event, Mikhail, wouldn't it be wiser to take the discussion inside?'
No one paid him any mind.
'I could have gotten her to talk,' Bravo said. 'Instead, an attempt was made on her life and now she's lost to us-the opportunity is lost. I don't consider that trivial.'
'She was lost through your inexperience,' Kartli said imperiously. 'You were the one with her in the field.'
Bravo swung at Kartli. The Georgian took the blow on his shoulder, grabbed Bravo's wrist and began the process of breaking it.
Bravo slammed his fist into Kartli's stomach to gasps from the onlookers. Released, he inadvisably took a step forward, ran right into a left-handed uppercut from the Georgian that dropped him onto his backside. Kartli came on in a low brawler's crouch. Bravo, half-dazed, waited until as long as he dared, regaining his breath, before he drew Lorenzo Fornarini's dagger.
Kartli froze in mid-stride, but his four sons moved toward Bravo, until the Georgian held up a hand. His blazing eyes were on Bravo, not them.
'Have a care,' Kartli said with a strange intensity. 'I told you to make damn sure you knew when to use it.'
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,
