"Right beside me," Bravo said with a frown. They were heading toward the gate and he was on the lookout for a bookstore. "You're the one who sounds bad."

"Ah, well, the Dutch have been working me over. Without you, I am lost. You're the one who knows how to handle them-you intimidate them, you see."

"The secret is simple, Jordan. The next time you meet with mem you must be mentally prepared to walk away from the deal. If you are, they'll sense it and back down. They don't want this deal to fall through, trust me."

"I do, mon ami. I will do as you suggest." Jordan took a breath. "But this other matter-I am not encouraged by what Camille tells me. I think you should consider abandoning this quest you seem to be on."

"I can't, Jordan, I'm sorry. This is something I have to do."

"Camille warned me you'd say that. Then you must allow me to provide you with a higher level of security. Where are you now?"

"At Charles de Gaulle. We're taking an Air France flight that gets into Venice at 10:45 tonight."

He spotted the bookseller and, with Jenny at his side, headed toward it.

"Bon. I will make a hotel reservation for you and have you met at Marco Polo Airport. A man named Berio. He'll be armed and will stay with you for as long as you're in the city."

"Jordan-"

"This is non-negotiable, mon ami. I'm not going to risk losing you-my business would collapse inside a year." He laughed, but quickly sobered. "Take care of yourself and of Jenny. You are vulnerable until you step onto the plane."

"Don't worry, Jordan, I'll be careful." He hesitated a moment. "And Jordan…"

"Oui?"

"Thanks."

He made several purchases at the bookseller, then they headed straight for the gate. By the time they arrived, their flight had begun boarding. It was with a palpable sense of relief that they surrendered their boarding passes and passed into the covered jetway.

The flight was full. Under the pretext of using the bathroom Jenny went back down the aisle, checking each 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.