The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp (Alfred Kropp #1)(56)

I yawned. I needed sleep, but my instincts told me sleep should probably be the last thing on my to-do list. I pushed myself off the bed. On the wall next to the TV was a mirror. I looked at myself and decided I probably should take a shower, but that would mean leaving the room, and I didn’t want to take the Sword with me into the shower or leave it in the room. I looked in the mirror and thought about Mogart calling me fat. I wasn’t fat; I was just big. I had always been big and blocky, like one of those blocks at Stonehenge, wide and rectangular, the most boring shape next to a square there is.

I sat back on the bed and tried to figure out my next move. I couldn’t stay here long—no more than a few hours. I should shower and brush my teeth and go, except I didn’t have a toothbrush. I didn’t have anything except the most powerful weapon on earth. I could declare myself the Emperor Kropp, King Alfred the First, Lord of the Earth, but right then all I wanted was a toothbrush.

If I made myself king, I could summon all the world’s leaders to Slough and declare world peace. I could demand all the tanks and bombs and guns be melted down and turned into playground equipment. I could tell all the rich countries to feed the poor ones and outlaw war and tell them from now on every penny they used to spend on weapons they now had to spend on finding cures for diseases and making cars that burn clean fuel. I could demand the end to every evil under the sun. No more war or disease or famine. I could fulfill what Bennacio said was the reason the archangel gave the Sword to Arthur: I could unite mankind. I could finish what Arthur started. It might not bring Bennacio back, or Samson and the knights, or Uncle Farrell, or anyone who was lost because of me, but it might make up for what I had done. It might even make Natalia not hate me anymore.

Maybe my destiny was to be the sword-wielding savior of the world, and wouldn’t that just make Amy Pouchard regret not giving me her cell phone number! I had a vision of myself on a great throne, with a great big golden crown on my great big head.

The cold I had felt coming on was now fully on: My head hurt, my nose was running, and my forehead was hot. I lay on the bed and told myself in a minute I would get up and take a cool shower to bring my fever down and be ready to think more clearly. It’s pretty sad when you reach the point of scheduling your clear thinking.

“That’s it. You’ve figured it all out, Kropp,” I told myself. I was pretty feverish by this point. “The Knights of the Sacred Order kept the Sword hidden for a thousand years, waiting for Alfred Kropp to come along and save the world. Right! It never occurred to any of them, from Bedivere on down, that maybe one of them could take up the Sword and bring peace to this rotten world. They were waiting for you, Mr. big-headed high school dropout, to take care of things.”

I touched the cold metal of the blade—after a thousand years, how smooth and perfect it was! Just touching it made me happy and sad at the same time.

Eventually, I fell asleep, and I was back in the dream of the dark rider on the terrible battlefield, the Sword in the rider’s hand. Just as he was about to slam the blade into the ground and blow away his enemies, he lifted his head and I could see his face. It was my face. Not Kropp the Benign . . . but Kropp the Conqueror, Kropp the Terrible.

When I opened my eyes again the room was dark and the phone was ringing. I turned on the table lamp and wondered how long I had been asleep. I stared at the phone on the bedside table and wondered who was calling. Maybe the front desk, to tell me some guys in black robes were waiting for me down in the lobby.

I picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Bonjour, Mr. Kropp.”

I picked up Mike’s gun from the bedside table and held it in my lap.

“Mr. Mogart.”

“Are you watching television?”

“Excuse me?”

“Is there a television in your room? If so, I suggest you turn it to channel one.”

“Right now?”

“Immediately.”

“I’m gonna have to put the phone down.”

“That’s quite all right.”

I set the phone down and turned on the TV. The BBC news had just started. About five minutes into the show, they ran a story about the American attorney general’s news conference that afternoon. He was announcing an update to the FBI’s most wanted list. Before they flashed the photograph on the screen, I knew what I would see.

It was my picture.

The attorney general was saying I was an international fugitive with ties to terrorists and was responsible for the deaths of sixteen British and American personnel in an attempt to destroy one of England’s most famous national treasures. Then he announced the Justice Department was offering a six-million-dollar reward for information leading to my capture and conviction.

The big-headed loser was finally tops in something: I was the most-wanted fugitive in the entire world, but all I could think of was how difficult it would be now to assemble my summit of world leaders and declare the founding of the Kingdom of Kropptopia.

I turned the set off and went back to the phone.

“I’m back,” I said.

“Congratulations, Mr. Kropp. You are a celebrity. Perhaps you will even make the cover of People magazine.”

“How—how did you find me, Mr. Mogart?”

I walked over to the window as I talked. I pulled back the curtain, expecting to see a SWAT team or their British counterparts storming the building. But all I could see was the empty parking lot and some woods. To my left, the dirty yellow lights of London glowed on the horizon.