“Headquarters is going to hear about this in my report,” he said.
“Headquarters is going to hear about many things,” Abby shot back.
Then she nodded to Jeff, who stuffed my head into that black sack again.
As we were going through the door I heard Bennacio say, “No, I shall lead him.” I felt a hand leave my elbow and another take its place.
Bennacio helped me into the backseat of the car and closed the door. After a second it opened again. I heard Cabiri saying, “No, no, no, Natalia . . .”
And I smelled peaches.
“Good-bye, Kropp,” her voice whispered. “Protect my father.”
The hood lifted over my right cheek, and I felt something warm and moist press against my chin. From the front seat, Mike let out a whistle and a loud whoop.
“ ‘Love is in the air!’ ” he sang.
Then my door slammed closed and the gravel crunched beneath the tires as we started down the mountain.
I figured we had been driving for an hour at least before we finally stopped. I could hear the sound of a jet engine warming up. The hood was lifted and I was blinking in the blinding light, getting a sinking feeling when I saw the plane about a hundred feet away. Mike turned to me.
“It’s not too late, Alfred. We can have another plane here in ten minutes.”
I looked at Bennacio, who had come to stand beside me.
“That’s okay,” I said. “I’m coming.”
We walked up the stairs and took our seats. I took the aisle because I didn’t want to look out the window. Mike put on a big pair of headphones. He said something into the microphone and the plane began to taxi toward the runway.
“Well, here we go!” Mike said. His cheeks were flushed. “This reminds me of the time the US Defense Department called us in to help with their little containment problem in Area Fifty-one! Whew, what a mess! But ’nuff said—that’s classified!” He was shouting now as the plane began to accelerate, pushing me back in my chair as I fumbled for the safety belt: I had forgotten to fasten it. “Or the time we were lost for six days in the Bermuda Triangle! Talk about some funky vibes! Saw things in that operation that would turn your hair white!” He laughed in Bennacio’s face. “But yours already is, so what the hey!”
Bennacio didn’t say anything, but he had a disgusted look on his face. I was pretty sure he was going to kill Mike before all this was over. I wondered if Mike knew that and had similar plans for Bennacio. I felt almost sorry for Mike; he didn’t know who he was screwing around with.
Mike explained that we would proceed immediately to the rendezvous point, where we would exchange the cash ransom for the Sword.
He wouldn’t tell us exactly where the rendezvous point was, but he did say we would be met by some agents of OIPEP, or “The Company.” OIPEP agents never called OIPEP “OIPEP.” Maybe it was Officers Investigating Perpetrators of Evil Pranks.
“Let us do the talking,” Mike said. “All you got to do, Benny, is hang back and wait. I’ll let you know when to step up and authenticate we’ve got the real McCoy.”
“And then?” Bennacio asked quietly.
“And then he’s all yours. Have fun with your vengeance.”
“And the Sword?”
“Let’s take it one step at a time, Benny. Let’s get it back first, okay? Then you and my superiors can talk.”
Bennacio nodded, but I could tell he wasn’t happy about it. My stomach was knotting up. I reached for the airsick bag.
After we touched down, I waited for the hood, but Mike just stood at the plane door and smiled at me, smacking his gum, and jerked his head toward the door. The sun had set and a cold, dense fog had rolled in. I wondered what the date was; I had lost track.
Mike led us to a pair of Bentleys parked on the tarmac. Bennacio had to reposition his sword so he could sit. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. After a minute his lips began to move as if he was saying a prayer. It probably was a prayer.
We turned off the main road onto a narrow lane that weaved through a forest. The headlights barely penetrated the fog, and I worried we’d run into a tree before we could even get there. Our driver was driving way too fast for the fog, but I had heard Europeans always drive too fast.
After another fifteen minutes or so the trees opened up and we were driving through a rolling countryside. In the distance, I could see floodlights shining on black shapes pointing like thick fingers at the night sky. I had seen this place before, and it wasn’t until the car began to slow down that I realized that Mogart had chosen Stonehenge as the place where the fate of the world would be decided.
40
We parked about a hundred yards away from the lighted circle of stones. Huge spotlights had been set up just outside the circle, and the fog separated each beam as it shone into the center. The air was so cold, I could see my breath. Men in dark suits waited for us just outside the outer ring. One of them came over and said to Mike in an English accent, “No sign of our quarry yet, Mike. We’ve established the perimeter; he won’t get within ten kilometers without us spotting him.”
Mike nodded and clapped the Brit on the back, but Bennacio said calmly, “No, he is already here.”
“I’m afraid that’s quite imposs—” the British agent began, then stopped, because just then a group of robed men stepped from behind one of the larger stones ringing the center. Six of them, in black robes, with a tall man in the middle, wearing a white robe with the hood thrown back.
Mogart.
We stepped into the circle on the opposite side. The guys from OIPEP stood in front of me and Bennacio, seven in all, not counting us two. An even match, except Mogart had the Sword that no army or combination of armies could resist. Mike took one step toward Mogart and raised his hand.
“You’re very punctual, Monsieur Mogart! That sort of thing impresses the living daylights out of me!”
“And you are late, Mr. Arnold,” Mogart answered. “I see you have brought some unexpected guests. How good it is to see you again, my brother knight.”
He bowed at Bennacio, and then looked at me. “And you, Mr. Kropp! How extraordinary that you are here! Please accept my gratitude for delivering the Sword!”
“You can go to hell,” I muttered under my breath. Bennacio touched me on the arm as if to say, Be still.
“Well,” Mike said. “Now that we’ve dispensed with the pleasantries, do you think we could talk a little business?”
“You Americans,” Mogart laughed. “Always so abrupt.”
Mike motioned to Paul, who reached into his coat and pulled out a long white envelope. Mike tossed it toward Mogart. It landed about three feet away and one of Mogart’s men snatched it off the ground and handed it to Mogart.
“That is the location and the account number,” Mike called over. “Deliver the item and we’ll give you the access code.”
Mogart peeked inside the envelope, a sly smile playing on the corners of his lips. He handed the envelope to the guy on his right and nodded to the one on his left. This guy walked into the circle holding something long and narrow wrapped in a golden cloth that shimmered in the glare of the floodlights. He laid it on the ground in the center of the ring and stepped back to rejoin Mogart.
“Okay, Benny,” Mike breathed. “You’re on.”
Bennacio walked slowly past Mike. I started to follow him and he whispered to me, “No, Alfred. Only if I call.”
He walked alone into the center of the ring of stones and knelt beside the bundle lying on the ground, the cloth glittering and sparkling as he unfolded it. He made some motion with his right hand. It was hard to see from where I was, but it looked something like the sign of the cross.
I don’t know everything that happened next, because a lot happened all at once, though it seemed to go in slow motion, like a car wreck. All of a sudden black-robed figures were flying from everywhere, swarming toward Bennacio, swords raised high over their heads. Paul yelled something beside me; I turned, and ther
e was a swirl of black robes and the flash of a long black blade before it sank into Paul’s back. There was the pop of small-arms fire on the other side of me. A head flew past my nose. It was Jeff’s.
A figure in a black robe twirled past me: One of the British agents had him in a headlock, but he shuffled backwards and slammed the agent into one of the stones, breaking his grip, before turning to sink his sword into him to the hilt.
That’s when somebody forced me to the ground, hissing in my ear, “Get down!” A gun went off right next to my ear and my whole head hurt from the explosion. A body fell right on top of me. I rolled him off and saw the bullet hole through the center of his forehead.
I looked to my right and there was Mike, a gun in his hand, lying flat on his belly and staring into the middle of the circle. His left hand was on the small of my back, I guess to remind me to stay down.
I looked around and saw nobody left standing except Mogart and Bennacio. Around Bennacio lay four or five of the black-robed AODs, most of them without their heads, some with their legs still jerking. I could see a thin line of blood trickling down the side of Bennacio’s face where one of the AODs must have smacked him as he knelt beside the Sword.
I looked for the Sword in Bennacio’s hand, but it wasn’t there. Mogart was holding the Sword.
Neither of them moved or said anything for a long time. They just looked at each other, standing about six feet apart, both taking in big gulps of air and breathing out in little jets of steam.
Finally, Bennacio said, “Surrender the Sword, Mogart.” He sounded very calm. “Surrender it now and I will show mercy toward you.”
“Oh yes, how I long for mercy from you,” Mogart sneered. “Sir Bennacio! Gentle Bennacio! The kindest and bravest of knights! The last knight!” The mocking expression disappeared and a shadow fell over his face. “I am the last knight, Bennacio. I am the heir to Lancelot, the master of the Sword!”
I leaned over and whispered into Mike’s ear. “Shoot him.”
Mike shook his head. I could have grabbed the gun from him and fired, but I had never fired a gun in my life. I was afraid of guns, to tell you the truth. Mike was slowly chewing his gum, working it so hard, his jaw clicked as he gnawed.
Bennacio drew his black sword from the folds of his brown robe and held it by his side, casually, like a man carrying an umbrella.
“You always had poor taste in friends,” Mogart said. “Cowards and fools. But what an admirable choice in your squire, Lord Bennacio! A fat, bumbling simpleton with hardly the intellectual wherewithal to tie his own shoes. You have outdone yourself, Bennacio.”
“The Sword belongs to neither of us, Mogart.” Bennacio used the same tone he had used with me sometimes, like a patient father talking to a thick-headed kid. “In your heart, unless it is totally corrupted, you know this. You may betray your sacred vow, but you cannot change the truth. You lay claim to something that is not meant for you. Abandon this madness that you might yet live.”
“Wise words coming from the man whose sole purpose is to kill me.”
“I wish harm to no man, Mogart. I shall ask you just once more. Relinquish the Sword that you might live. Answer now, yes or no.”
Bennacio raised his sword, holding it with both hands, the hilt at chest level, the blade right in front of his face, about two inches from his sharp nose. Mogart smiled and raised Excalibur, holding it with both hands like Bennacio, so they mirrored each other, Bennacio with his brown robe and black sword, Mogart in his white robe and the much longer and wider Sword of Kings.
“Here is my answer,” Mogart said softly, and launched himself at Bennacio.
41
Bennacio’s blade was a black blur, its shiny surface sparking now and then in the glare of the floodlights. As he spun and turned and sidestepped around the circle, his brown robe fluttered and snapped. Bennacio was taller than Mogart, and he was faster. They held their swords with both hands as they fought, and each time Excalibur struck Bennacio’s sword, I saw black flecks and sparks shooting off against the charcoal-colored backdrop of the great stones.
The blades whined and whistled as they cut through the cold air, and I don’t know if it was the ringing in my ears from the gunshots, but there was a faint sound like a choir singing, and I remembered Bennacio telling me of the angels lamenting the last time he and Mogart met.
I remembered how it felt when I used the Sword, how it seemed a part of me or more like I was part of it. I remembered Bennacio telling me how it could not be defeated or destroyed, and then I realized what Bennacio had known all along: There was no winning against the Sword. Bennacio didn’t have a prayer, and that made my chest hurt, because Bennacio didn’t have a prayer—and he prayed anyway. He couldn’t win, but he fought anyway.
Mogart was getting impatient. He must have thought Bennacio should be dead already. His blows came faster and Bennacio’s parries a little slower, until Mogart swung the Sword high and brought it down in a sweeping arc straight at Bennacio’s head. Bennacio raised his sword to block the downward blow and, when Excalibur struck, Bennacio’s sword flew from his hands and skittered away into the shadows. The force of the blow knocked him to his knees.
Then he did a strange thing, a horrible thing, the strangest, most horrible thing I’ve ever seen anybody do: Bennacio raised his head and brought his arms straight out from his sides, very slowly, palms turned upward. He was offering himself!
Mogart hesitated, the tip of the Sword poised a few inches from Bennacio’s heaving chest.
“No,” I whispered.
Then Mogart slammed the Sword into the last knight’s chest and Bennacio fell over without a sound, his eyes still open.
42
Somebody was screaming loud enough to drown out the high-pitched singing or ringing or whatever it was going on inside my head, and it took me a second to realize the screaming person was me.
The next thing I knew, I was running across the circle of stones, straight for Mogart, with Mike yelling after me, “Kropp! Kropp! Kropp!”
When I was about twenty feet away, Mogart pulled the Sword from Bennacio’s chest, and the last knight fell to his side, eyes wide open staring right at me as I ran.
At ten feet, Mogart began to turn toward me.
At five, he was raising the tip of the Sword, its blade still glistening with Bennacio’s blood.
At two, he actually started to smile.
I didn’t let him finish that smile. I smashed my forearm into his face and he staggered backward. My forward momentum carried me right into him and we fell into the grass. I landed on top, knocking the wind out of him. He started to bring the Sword up, but I slapped my hand down hard on his wrist. When his hand struck the ground, I pulled the Sword out of his hand and stood up.
I backpedaled, gasping for air, my breath fogging and swirling. Mogart slowly sat up, gulping air.
A voice behind me said, “Alfred.”
I turned, the Sword rising without me thinking about it. Mike was walking toward me, smiling widely, still holding the gun in his right hand, the left outstretched.
“Awesome, man! Simply awesome,” Mike said. “You wanna come work for us?”
“It’s the football,” I gasped. “Finally paid off.”
“Mr. Kropp,” Mogart said. “I beg you to reconsider.”
I took a couple of steps backward, so I could keep both of them in sight. Mogart was smiling now.
“It is not yours to take,” Mogart said.
“It isn’t yours either,” I said. My voice sounded very small and quivery to me.
“Actually, it’s mine,” Mike said. “I mean, it’s the property of my employer. Anyway, we bought it fair and square. Alfred, I’m gonna give Monsieur Mogart here the access code to the Swiss bank account so he can have his money and then you, me, and the Sword are outta here. How’s that sound?”
“Not very good, Mike,” I said, and then I ran.
43
Of course it was dark and foggy and I was i
n a strange country, but as I stumbled along I thought I’d try to make it to the forest we had driven through. The back of my neck tingled and my hair stood up, waiting for Mike’s bullet. He wouldn’t have hesitated to kill Mogart for the Sword and I didn’t think he’d hesitate to kill me for it either.
I’m not a fast runner to begin with, and hefting the Sword didn’t make me any faster. The long wet grass pulled at my feet and I might have just gone in circles in the dark, but the floodlights helped; I kept looking over my shoulder and they kept getting smaller as I ran. I listened for the sound of Mogart’s army coming after me, but there was no sound at all except my huffing and puffing and the swish-swish of the grass rubbing against the soles of my shoes as I ran.
I stumbled onto the edge of the paved road. If this was the same road we drove in on, then following it would take me back into the woods. I still couldn’t hear any sound of pursuit and I was too tired to run any more, so I started walking. Fog and sweat flattened my hair and I kept having to wipe the moisture off my face. My shirt clung to my chest and I shivered. I could feel a bad cold coming on. For some reason, the scar on my thumb was throbbing to beat the band. Maybe because the Sword was near it.
I was still walking with no woods in sight, just rolling hills that disappeared into the fog, when I heard the car coming up the road behind me.
I ran to the side of the road and threw myself onto the ground, making myself as flat as a fat, bumbling simpleton can get. But I didn’t get flat enough, because the car stopped and a voice called out softly, “Alfred! Alfred Kropp, get over here!”
I lifted my head. Mike was sitting behind the wheel, smiling, smacking, waving his hand urgently at me.
“Come on! We don’t have much time . . .”
He was probably right about that and I didn’t have much of a choice. I scrambled up the embankment to the car and dived into the backseat. Mike hit the gas and the Bentley’s back wheels spun out, screeching on the wet pavement like a wounded animal.