The Testament

"Are you-?"

"Je

"Why?" Bravo said. "And why did my father want me to meet you?"

She was about to answer, when her head swiveled. Her entire body tensed. Bravo, concentrating, heard it, too, and he was already moving toward the front door. But she stopped him, pointing to a pair of men emerging from a dark sedan, ru

Chapter 4

Je

Voices came to them, harsh and urgent; curt orders were given, and then they heard the pounding of heavy feet. The house was completely surrounded. By whom? Bravo had no idea, and now was definitely not a good time to ask Je

Down he went, missing the first three rungs of a vertical iron ladder, wrenching his right shoulder. With a soft grunt he balanced himself as she came down after him. Glancing up, he saw her pause to pull the ru

Rossi, loaded Glock at the ready, followed the two men into Je

He hated this assignment and, in particular, he hated being in America. He longed to be back in Rome with its sundrenched streets, the excited jabber of friends and neighbors, the grit of centuries long past under his fingernails. Here, everything was bright and shiny, gobbled down fast-food style in insatiable amounts, ugly in its aggressive newness. As he went through closet after closet, he reflected sourly that for America nothing was ever enough, no matter how much it had or would ever have. He saw with Old World sensibilities a kind of hysteria that lived beneath the skin of every American, that brooked no recourse, no negotiation, no… what was it the Americans liked to say? It's my way or the highway. Oh, to be back on Via dell' Orso with the earthy smells of brick and fresh-baked bread, slyly eyeing the young women with wide hips, thrusting breasts and flashing eyes!

By the time he reached the bathrooms, he was joined by the two men who'd used the battering ram. They shook their heads in the negative. He ripped down the shower curtains, stomped on the tile floors, hammered against the walls in search of hidden trapdoors to hidey-holes. He had no illusions about this being a normal house. The occupant was no normal female; she would have spent months in the preparation for just such an invasion.

"Well, they're here somewhere, either in the attic or the basement," Rossi said as he led them out of the second bathroom. "You two find the attic and get in. I'll take the others into the basement."

For a few moments, they were in utter darkness. Bravo could hear her breathing, smell his scent and hers mingling as she stepped off the ladder in close quarters. All at once, louder sounds-muffled through the floorboards-came to them as the house was fully occupied. How many men? Bravo asked himself. Two in the front, the same number in back? More?

He very badly wanted to talk to Je

Thoughts stuck in his mind like thorns he couldn't reach. They had stopped in front of what seemed to be a solid stone wall. He reached out, confirmed his supposition. All at once, he heard an explosion, and he winced, sweating freely, memories of the other, larger explosion that had caught him vivid in his memory and now the heart-stopping moment of impact brought immediately and terrifyingly into the present. The basement door had been shattered by a gunshot and now came the quick and ominous scrape of shoe soles against concrete.

Then he felt her hand on his shoulder, pressing firmly, and he crouched down beside her. He heard her scramble forward and followed her into what at first appeared to be a recess in the wall. But once inside, he felt a draft of sodden heat and, glancing up, saw the gauze of pale sky contained in a black frame, an abstract image of the world outside. This was the chimney or, since no flue was visible, a space hidden behind the chimney. In the dim light, he could see Je

Je

With a soft grunt, Rossi blew apart the lock on the door to the basement. As he raced down the stairs, his two men close behind him, he felt the familiar swirl of venom in the pit of his stomach. There was something about blood, the rising of it in his own body, the heat it produced rushing into his palms, fingers and toes, the copper taste of it as if he had bitten clear through a metal bar, that made him feel elemental, larger than life, immortal.

His nostrils flared like a wolf on the hunt. They were down here, their scents like a fading vapor trail in the sky. He lifted his left arm and the two men switched on battery-powered floodlights. At once everything was thrown into stark relief. There was no place to hide, no nooks or cra

He directed them to the walls first. They pounded on the concrete with the butts of their semiautomatic rifles, pulled cartons and boxes away to peer behind them. Rossi knew that there must be a way out of the basement. The woman would not have taken Shaw down here without one. It was simply a matter of finding it.

While the men systematically stabbed at the walls and floor, he checked everything else. There wasn't much that could be of use to them: a boiler, a hot water heater, the solid brick rectangle of the chimney, no central air or vacuum. The boiler and heater stood away from the wall. Nothing there for him, so he turned his back and went over to the brick chimney. He walked all the way around it, then stood staring at it, wondering why it went all the way down to the basement. There was no opening that he could see, no reason for it to be here.

He put the flat of his hand on the brick, closed his eyes. One of his men said something to him.