The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp (Alfred Kropp #1)(46)

He frowned at me. “I am not speaking of the Sword.”

“They’re not going to let you have it, are they?”

“I think not.”

“How’re you going to stop them?”

“I will do as I always have done: all that I must to protect it.”

“Bennacio, you can’t kill them.”

He sighed. “Long ago, Alfred, I took a solemn oath as binding as gravity. I know of no other way.”

“Well, I’m not sure exactly what you’re trying to say, Bennacio. Maybe because I’ve never taken any kind of oath like that. I’ve never taken any kind of oath period.”

He looked at me with those deep-set, intense eyes.

“Why not?”

“I guess I never had the chance.”

“All of us have that chance. But we either choose not to or do not recognize it when it comes. On the plane, when I told you I believed all happens for a purpose, you thought of your uncle’s death, and you wondered how something so seemingly useless could serve any purpose. In the past, Alfred, men cast about for reasons to believe. Now we find reasons not to.”

“I’m not following you, Bennacio.”

“The human race has grown arrogant, and in its arrogance assumes nothing is beyond the power of its reason. If we see no purpose, it follows there must be no purpose. It is the fallacy of our times.”

“Bennacio,” I said. “You can’t just kill them. For every one of them you kill, they’ll send a dozen to come after you. Sooner or later they’ll find you, and I don’t care how powerful the Sword is, they’ll get it from you somehow. And then they’ll kill you.”

“Perhaps,” he answered. “Yet mercy has cost us much. If I had killed you the night you took the Sword, your friends and mine would still be alive and the Sword would still be safe.”

“Yeah, but I’d be dead.”

He laughed, then patted me on the knee and stood up.

“I think I shall miss you, Alfred Kropp, when this is over.”

He left me alone. I sat there for a few minutes, thinking. Mostly I was thinking the last knight was going to buy the farm. Either Mogart would kill him or the agents of OIPEP would.

I was convinced that Mike’s plan was to use Bennacio to help get the Sword, and then kill him (and probably me). That’s what Natalia meant when she told me I had sentenced Bennacio to death.

Thinking about Natalia made me feel especially rotten, though I’m not sure why. It’s not easy being hated by anybody, but it’s especially hard when the person who hates you also happens to be the prettiest girl you’ve ever seen.

35

Later that afternoon I was lying on my bed, thinking, when overhead I heard the slow thumpa-thumpa of a helicopter, growing louder as it approached. From downstairs there was clumping and bumping as the spies ran around in a panic, shouting at each other and looking for their guns.

I heard Mike shouting, “Breached! We’ve been breached!”

I jumped out of bed and ran into the hallway, where I literally bumped into Bennacio. He was wearing his brown robe and carrying his black sword.

“Mogart?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Something worse, I fear.”

I tried to imagine something worse than Mogart. I followed Bennacio downstairs into the great room. Jeff and Paul corralled us and told us to stand back. Mike and Abby went to the front door and flung it open. Over their shoulders I could see a black attack helicopter landing on the sloping ground in the front yard. A big man wearing a black sweater jumped out. He reached into the helicopter and helped out a smaller person.

Mike’s shoulders relaxed and he stuck the gun under his Windbreaker as the two people walked up the gravel path to the front door.

Abby glared at Bennacio. “Do you have an explanation for this?” she asked.

Mike stepped back, and then Cabiri came into the room, Natalia right behind him. She ignored Mike and Abby and rushed over to Bennacio. As she passed me, I could smell her hair—peaches.

“Hello!” Cabiri called to nobody in particular. “Hello, hello! And how is everyone? How are all my secret-agent friends?”

Mike slammed the door, threw the dead bolt, and whirled on Bennacio.

“You got an explanation for this?” he shouted.

“I’ve already asked him that, Michael,” Abby said coldly.

“Please, do not hold Lord Bennacio responsible,” Cabiri said. “This is entirely my doing.” He gave an apologetic smile. “Scusi.”

“Save your ‘scusis,’ pal,” Mike shot back, as the thumpa-thumpas of the helicopter grew fainter. “How did you find us?”

“Oh,” Cabiri said, “how does the fox find the chicken? How does the bird find the worm?” He smiled at Bennacio.

“You called them,” Mike said, turning to Bennacio.

“How might I call them?” Bennacio asked. “I have no telephone.”

“I am a Friend of the Sword,” Cabiri said to Mike, his voice losing its jokey edge. “And Friends of the Sword have friends who have friends. Do you think your presence has gone unnoticed in Saint Étienne?”

Mike didn’t seem to be listening. He brushed passed Cabiri and bounded up the stairs, dialing his cell phone as he went. A door slammed above us and I could hear Mike’s voice as he shouted to someone on the phone, but I couldn’t make out the words. Abby sighed.