The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp (23 page)

“After Uncle Farrell died, I had this dream. Well, more of a nightmare than a dream.” I told him about the faceless army and the rider of the black horse, how he slammed the Sword into the smoking ground, how planes fell and tanks blew up, how the soldiers screamed and ran from the blinding light of the Sword.

Bennacio stared at me for a long time after I finished.

“What interesting dreams you have, Alfred Kropp,” he said. “Let us pray they are not prophetic.”

32

Two cars waited for us on the edge of the private airstrip when we touched down in France. Three men in dark suits and dark sunglasses stood beside two black cars parked by the runway. I looked up as we walked down the stairs and saw the two F-16s scream by overhead.

“You guys must be wiped out,” Mike said. “Come on. It isn't far from here, I promise.”

He opened the rear door of one of the black cars. I looked at Bennacio. He nodded and I slid in. He sat down beside me and one of the dark-suited guys got behind the wheel. Mike sat beside him up front and we started to drive. The other two guys followed us in the second black car.

Mike opened the glove box and pulled out something black. It looked like a rag.

“Al,” he said to me. “I really hate to do this, but it's a secure location, you know?”

He reached over the seat and, before I could put my hands up, he had slipped the cloth over my head. I couldn't see a thing. I started to yank it off, but felt a hand on my arm. Bennacio. He patted me as if to say,
It's going to be all
right.

“Hope you guys are hungry,” Mike was saying. “Jeff joined us from Istanbul yesterday and he is one
heck
of a cook. We'll grab some grub, and then you can take a shower and change your clothes. Al, you especially look like somebody's chewed you up and spit you out.”

“Where is Mogart?” Bennacio asked.

“No idea, man.” He didn't sound too concerned about it, but that may have come from the gum-chewing. “We know where he
isn't,
which is Játiva. Our folks went in yesterday, took out the whole compound, but he and his boys had already cleared out. Found Samson. Or what was left of him. Man, talk about freaky. You guys operate on a whole different level, don't you? What in the dickens was
that
about?”

Bennacio didn't say anything. I wondered what Mike was talking about. What did Mogart do to Samson that was “freaky”?

I was having a hard time breathing inside my hood. It took everything inside me not to pull it off. I wondered what Mike would do if I did. Maybe shoot me. Casually, though, the way he talked and smacked the gum, like it was a summer afternoon and all he was doing was watching a baseball game. My voice was muffled by the cloth when I said, “Samson was Bennacio's captain; you shouldn't talk about him like that.”

He ignored me. “We think he may have slipped into Morocco or maybe even Algeria. Anyway, every border in the free world's been locked down, but that's a lot of square footage to cover and not everybody's a friend of truth, justice, and the American way, if you know what I mean. Anyway, yesterday we get the call he's ready to deal. Tells us to sit tight and he'll be back in touch with the final figure and location of the exchange. Don't know where it'll be or what the final price tag is—they don't tell us much at our level, but we've got a pool going if you want in on it. The rumor is— and this is unconfirmed and classified, by the way—the rumor is one hundred billion dollars. That's
billion
with a capital
B,
man. You wanna know my personal opinion? I think he did all this just to make the Forbes list.”

I heard a cell phone ringing and then Mike talking quietly. It seemed like we had been driving for a long time, but it was hard to tell with the hood over my face; time passes differently when you can't see. We went fast, then slow, then fast again, like we were hitting highways, then getting off again onto lesser roads. Then the engine revved as we climbed up a steep incline. Once we leveled off, I heard the engine stop, and my door opened. A hand reached in, grabbed my right arm, and pulled me out.

Somebody said, “Watch your head,” and guided me by the elbow along a rocky path. The rocks or gravel crunched under my feet and I thought about my dream and scrambling up the slag heap to find the Lady in White with her long black hair and dark eyes staring sadly into space, waiting for the Master to come.

“Step up,” the same voice said, and now I was walking on wooden planks. I shivered in the cold. The air around me suddenly got warmer; I was inside. Somebody pulled the hood off. I squinted in the light, though it wasn't really that bright inside.

We were standing in a little entryway to a cabin, or maybe in France you call it a château. Wooden floors, a cathedral ceiling, and a huge fireplace. About a dozen guys milled about and I could smell bacon frying. Suddenly I was the hungriest I had ever been in my life. My knees were actually weak.

“So what would you guys like? Shower first, or breakfast?”

“Alfred needs to eat,” Bennacio said.

“All I had was some cheese and grapes,” I said to no one in particular. No one in particular seemed to be listening.

33

An agent named Jeff laid out ham and bacon, biscuits, eggs, sugary things somebody said was
beignets
(a kind of French doughnut that I ate six of), a couple of T-bones, coffee, juice, hot tea, and fresh hot chocolate. Mike was a big Cubs fan and he talked with this other guy, Paul, about their chances this year and the problem was their bullpen like it was every other year. Bennacio sat beside me, nibbled on some toast with strawberry jam, sipped coffee, and said nothing.

After breakfast, Mike led us up the stairs to the second floor and showed us the bathrooms where we could wash up. I stripped down and laid my clothes outside the door as Mike suggested, so they could be washed while Bennacio and I took our showers.

I stood for a long time under the hot spray. I think I may have had jet lag, because I kept dropping the soap, and everything seemed to be taking a very long time to accomplish: it seemed washing my hair took at least a couple of hours.

I stood in the shower until my fingertips pruned up; then I dried off and slipped into a white terry-cloth robe that I found hanging on a hook by the shower. The bathroom was very small and I kept knocking into the sink and hitting my elbows on the walls, but I felt better with a full stomach and a clean body. I found a toothbrush and some paste in the medicine cabinet and scrubbed my teeth. Brushing my teeth made me think of my mother, who was a real stickler for oral hygiene—I'd never had a cavity in my life.

I was late getting back downstairs. The meeting had already started without me. Mike, Jeff, and Paul were sitting on the sofa in the great room, with Bennacio sitting by himself in the rough-hewn rocking chair near the fire.

A lady sat next to Mike. She had large lips that looked very red and wet-looking in the firelight. Her platinum-blond hair was pulled into a tight bun on top of her head. She wore a pinstriped business suit and black high heels.

I leaned against the wooden beam in the entryway, feeling kind of silly in my bare feet, my hair still wet. Bennacio was fully dressed. Nobody acknowledged my presence. Mike was talking.

“So it's all set up,” he was saying. “Last night I got final approval from headquarters. I can't tell you how much, that's classified, but I will say we think we've topped the highest bid by at least half a billion.”

He stopped, almost as if he was waiting for an answer from Bennacio. He didn't get an answer, though. Bennacio said nothing. He was staring at the fire.

Mike pulled a piece of foil from his pocket, carefully wrapped his used gum in it, and slipped it back into his pocket. He popped another piece of gum into his mouth, wrapped up the foil, and just as carefully put the fresh foil into his pocket.

The lady with the shiny blond hair spoke up. She had a British accent. “Honestly, we think that was his plan from the beginning, to sell the Sword to us.”

“Really?” Bennacio said. “You presume much.”

“Who else could he turn to?” she asked. “We represent the richest countries in the world. And he can trust us. Not even the Dragon wants to see the whole world go up in flames.”

“Right, Benny-boy, that's right!” Mike said. “I mean, how's he going to enjoy his money in a nuclear wasteland? He's known from the beginning he
has
to sell it to the good guys.”

“I have told you,” Bennacio said. “Mogart does not intend to give you the Sword. He will never part with it.”

“How come?” Mike was smiling at Bennacio, a hard, unfriendly smile.

“Would you?”

“Hey, come on now, Benny. We're the good guys, remember? We're all on the same side here, right?”

“He will take your money and keep the Sword.”

“World domination, huh? King Mogart. Well, we're just gonna have to take our chances on that one, Benny.”

“You are a fool,” Bennacio said, turning away from the fire and glaring at Mike. “He will betray you.”

“That's precisely why we've invited you to the party.” Mike turned to the British lady. “Right, Abby?”

Abby said, “We will not make the exchange until you've verified the Sword's authenticity.”

“And then OIPEP returns the Sword of Righteousness to us, its friends,” Bennacio said. Now he was the one smiling hard and unfriendly.

“I'm gonna be honest with you, Benny. That's not our call,” Mike said. “Point of fact you guys didn't do such a hot job of protecting it in the first place.”