The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp (Alfred Kropp #1)(43)

“Bennacio, are you ever going to tell me what OIPEP is?”

He smiled at me. “What do you think it is?”

“Mr. Samson said it was some kind of supersecret spy outfit. You don’t trust them, do you?”

“I do not trust outsiders to resist the temptation of obtaining the ultimate weapon.”

“So that’s the deal? Mogart’s offering the Sword to OIPEP?”

“Perhaps.”

“You seem awful calm about it, Bennacio.”

“I am a man of faith, Alfred.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“There is a purpose to all things.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But I don’t get it.”

“Not many do, when the test comes.”

“I think I failed that test.”

“Do you? Perhaps you have. Yet it is also possible that the true test has not yet come. Who can say? I have given much thought to your words in Halifax. Indeed, Samson did think it important you knew of our fall.”

“Maybe he just wanted me to know what a mess I made of everything.”

“Have you learned so little of us, Kropp, that you would believe such a thing? This mess, as you say, does not belong to you, any more than it belongs to me. Do not concern yourself so much with guilt and grief, Alfred. No battle was ever won, no great deed ever accomplished, by wallowing in guilt and grief.”

He patted my hand and stood up. “Excuse me, I must speak with Mr. Arnold for a moment.”

He disappeared into the cockpit. I yawned. I looked out the little window and saw nothing but a lot of sky, a lot of water, and something glinting in the fading sunlight off our wing. Probably an F-16. I yawned again. I had slept for hours and I still felt sleepy.

Bennacio was gone a long time. When he came back he was smiling.

“What?” I asked.

“She lives,” he said simply, and sat down beside me.

“That’s great,” I said. “I should apologize, Bennacio. I was supposed to keep her in that back room, but she kneed me in the crotch.” My face got hot telling him that. Some kind of squire I was turning out to be.

He gave a little wave of his hand. I didn’t know what that meant.

I said, “Is she your wife?”

“She is my daughter.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say, so I added, “She’s, um, pretty.”

He didn’t answer. He was peering out the window again. “It appears we are making our final approach, Kropp. Say nothing of what you know about the Sword to Mike.”

“That won’t be hard because there’s not a lot I know.”

“He is our ally in this quest, but we are strange bedfellows.”

“How’s that?”

“Surely it has occurred to you that evil men are not alone in their desire for the Sword. It is the ultimate weapon. There is no defense against it.”

“I was thinking about that,” I said. “Mr. Samson told me an army with the Sword at its head would be invincible, but couldn’t somebody just drop a nuke on it?”

“It is impervious to any device of man,” Bennacio said, “no matter how terrible. I do not know precisely what would happen, Alfred. All I know is the Sword cannot be defeated or destroyed.”

“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?”