"Jenny," he panted, "why are you doing this?"

Another blow rocked him, but he refused to let go of the wrist, bending it sharply back, hearing the quick hiss of pain escape from between his adversary's lips. Brushing against her as he turned away from still another blow, he felt the swell of her breasts, and he turned her, about to slide his arm around her throat. But just then she slammed the heel of her hand into his nose. His head snapped back and his vision blurred as tears started from his eyes, momentarily blinding him. His adversary used her advantage to break his grip. He had a brief impression of a female figure running, then it was silhouetted blurrily against the white glare of daylight as she pulled open a side door and vanished.

Bravo shook his head, trying to clear it. Then he stumbled forward, reaching for the door. He found himself on a narrow street running beside the dank water of the canal. A mass of reflections, moving and rippling, rose up to him as if from a painting still being altered by an artist's brush.

Up ahead was the stone arch of a bridge. Sunlight struck his face like a blow, and squinting, he thought he glimpsed a female figure in the crowd hurrying across the bridge. Wiping the last of the tears out of his eyes, he shouldered his way through the mass of sweaty tourists, but he reached the apex of the bridge without having been able to positively identify Jenny. He stood there for a moment, his back to the throng, scanning the people in the square on the other side. All at once, he was swaying, his head swimming, not only from the glare and sodden heat but also from the blows he'd sustained in the corridor outside the rectory.

What other woman would have the physical power and expertise to fight hand-to-hand like that? And then, as if a picture snapped into focus, he remembered what Jenny had said when he'd shown her the Sig-Sauer: "Maybe you ought to give the gun to me." If she were the traitor, of course she'd want the gun.

He was so lost in this excruciating line of conjecture that he didn't notice the two men who came up behind him. Before he understood what was happening, they had pushed him over the side of the bridge. He fell, landing on the deck of a motoscafo. Immediately, a sack was drawn over his head, and the boat took off. His feet were swept out from under him, someone was saying something urgently quite close; he ignored it and fought, but soon his arms were pinioned to his side. Using his forehead as a weapon, he struck out, colliding with one of his captors. He bulled forward, trying to press his advantage, but a precise blow that landed behind his right ear drove him into unconsciousness.

Jenny awoke in utter darkness. She groaned. Even touching the back of her neck set off a wave of dizziness and nausea that made her cry out. She held her aching head for some time. What had happened? She had been talking to that priest and then…

Woozily, she stood against a wall. It was cold and damp. She put her hand out, encountered stone. Slowly, she moved along the wall until she came to a door. She tried the wrought-iron handle, but the door was locked. She retreated two steps, took a deep breath and slowly let it out. She repeated the process three times, each inhalation and exhalation deeper than the last. Then, gathering herself, she kicked the door open. She staggered back and almost fell. The effort setting off another bout of vertigo and nausea. This time, she turned her head to one side and retched, vomiting up the contents of her stomach.

Out in the corridor, she was greeted by more blackness. It was then she remembered her pocket flashlight. Digging it out, she switched it on, played the beam this way and that. It took her a moment before she saw the body. At first, she thought it was Bravo, and her heart lurched painfully, the ache at the back of her neck redoubling. As she came closer, she saw the curtainlike drape of a priest's robes and recognized Father Mosto.

Cautiously, she went toward where his body lay twisted and bloody. A sudden flash caught her eye, metal reflected by the light. Closer still, she found herself staring at a puddle of blood turned black and shiny as oil by the beam of light. In it, glimmering evilly, was a knife that looked-no, it couldn't be! Checking her pocket, she found her knife gone. She peered more closely at the switchblade on the floor. She picked it up, needing visceral confirmation.

Oh, my God, she thought, it is mine!

Someone had attacked her, stolen her knife and used it to slit Father Mosto's throat. But how did they know she was carrying a knife? No time and no way to answer those questions now.

"Bravo!" she called. "Bravo!"

Running back toward the rectory, she came upon the side door, which was open enough to allow a narrow triangle of light into the corridor. It seemed logical that whoever had taken him had used this to make their escape. Still, just to be certain, she searched the rectory. There was the armoire, its doors agape, an inner panel removed, but no Bravo. Cursing herself, she flew back down the corridor and out the door into the blazing heat.

Almost immediately, she noticed the commotion on the stone bridge that spanned the canal. People were all too willing to tell her about the man who had been pushed over the side of the bridge into the waiting motoscafo.

An old man dressed in impeccable Venetian fashion was incensed. "The terrorists spirited him off!"

"How do you know they were terrorists?" Jenny said.

"They kidnapped him, didn't they? What else could they be? And in broad daylight, can you imagine!" He made a rude gesture, his anger at its apex. "When did Venice become America?"

Camille, watching Jenny from the concealment of a shadowed doorway, was still vibrating with the aftermath of the adrenaline rushing through her system. She desperately wanted a cigarette, but the nicotine would calm her, and she didn't want that just yet. There was nothing like a burst of extreme physical exertion to make you feel alive, she thought. To make you feel vital, to prove that you're still young.

As she observed the progress of Jenny's inquiries, she dabbed absently at the corner of her mouth with a folded bit of cloth. The cloth was already stained with her blood. Her body ached where Bravo had struck her, but it was a delicious pain, verging on the erotic, and the breath came hot in her throat. To be in physical contact with first Jenny and then Bravo, to feel Jenny's warm weight in her arms, to know that she was utterly helpless, and then to move on to Bravo, to know that the two had been lovers, to sense in their musculature the other, like a shadow or an indentation in a pillow with all its intimate scents, stimulated her like nothing else could.

Bravo had not, of course, been as pliant as Jenny. He had fought her, enabling her to assess firsthand the job his father had done with him; it brought him closer to her in a way she found enjoyable. Over the years she had probed and prodded Bravo, mainly through Jordan, in ways he'd never been aware of. It felt good to take the physical measure of him-more than good, it felt right, as if like a sorcerer she had been able to transform an image in a photograph and bring it to life. He was like a beautiful chair she had once coveted, with one leg torn away, tottering, ripe for a fall.

Of Father Mosto she thought not at all. He was of no consequence to her except as an object through which she was separating the lovers, isolating Bravo, revealing the vulnerable spot by which she would at long last destroy him.

Jenny, leaning on the stone parapet of the bridge, was assailed by doubt. She was in the middle of a nightmare, much of it of her own making. She had been so tied up in knots over her growing feelings for Bravo and her guilt in not telling him the truth about herself that she'd allowed her instincts to be dulled. She had forgotten who she was and so had been vulnerable to a clever attack by Knights in priest's robes, for that was the only logical explanation for what had happened. Now Bravo was in the enemy's hands-the worst had happened, and she was to blame.