The Thirteenth Skull (Alfred Kropp #3)(25)

My finger tightened on the trigger as he spun the bike around, waving an arm over his head frantically before yanking back on the throttle and spraying me with dirt and slimy dead leaves from his back wheels. I noticed then he wasn’t wearing a helmet and the back of his head looked awfully familiar, but it was already too late: I’d pulled the trigger.

Spitting smoke, the round took off toward the back of Nueve’s head.

The Spaniard had guts, I’ll give him that. He waited until the mini bomb was almost on him, then dove off the bike into the trees. He didn’t fool the missile though. It veered away from the bike and toward him, hitting the tree trunk he dived behind and exploding on impact. The tree jerked, swayed, then tumbled down across the trail, the sound of its branches cracking and splitting very loud in the cold air.

I dismounted by the fallen tree and walked unsteadily to where Nueve lay curled in a ball. When I bent over to check his pulse, his hand shot up and grabbed me by the throat.

“I told you to be careful, Kropp. You could have killed me!”

I lost it. It really was too much, after all I’d been through that week, to have this jerk scold me like I was some little kid.

I hadn’t asked for any of it—in fact, I had wanted the exact opposite, and here he was acting like I had dragged him into this crap.

I grabbed his wrist and tore his hand away, and then I hit him as hard as I could in the jaw. He fell back onto his butt with a startled expression.

“Maybe that’s my problem,” I snarled at him. “Maybe that’s why I can’t extract myself from you nutcases—I keep killing the wrong people! You knew who Jourdain Garmot was the whole time, didn’t you? You knew he was Mogart’s son, didn’t you?”

“Does that matter?” he asked, rubbing his jaw, but somehow smiling his annoying ironic smile.

“You’re damn right it matters! You knew who he was and where he was, and you could have stopped him!”

I pulled my fist back to pop him again. He scooted backward and rose to his full height.

“I am authorized to kill you if I have to,” he said.

“Really? Well, that’s where I’m one up on you. I don’t need anyone’s authorization!” I raised the handheld rocket launcher and took dead aim at his little Spanish smile.

“Do that and you will never reach the airport alive,” he said.

“How did you find me at the warehouse?” I asked.

“We followed Vosch, of course.”

“Jourdain said they weren’t followed.”

Nueve shrugged.

“What is the Thirteenth Skull?”

He stared at me, stone-faced.

“Jourdain needs it so Michael will return the gift. The gift is the Sword, isn’t it? Jourdain’s after Excalibur and he needs the Thirteenth Skull to get it.”

He didn’t say anything. He just shrugged.

“Don’t shrug,” I said. “Don’t ever shrug again in front of me, understand?”

“It is only a shrug.”

“Don’t change the subject either.”

“I didn’t. You changed the subject.”

“Stop it. It doesn’t matter who changed the subject.”

“Then why tell me not to?”

“Yes or no, you knew the whole time Jourdain was behind all this.”

“Why does it matter?”

“Because you could have stopped him!”

“Have we not done that? Are you not still alive? Have I not saved your miserable las nalgas more times than either of us can recall?”

“So why didn’t you stop him?”

“Do you still understand so little about the Company, Alfred Kropp? We are not a private security company. We are interested in only one thing as it relates to you and that one thing is not your personal welfare. And if you fail to deliver that one thing, we shall leave you to your fate at the hands of Mogart’s son.”

He brushed past me and righted the motorcycle. “Now come, you ungrateful little drag queen; they are waiting for us at the airport. I’ve had my fill of this godforsaken town and more than my fill of you.”

I climbed onto the seat behind him.

“Give back my weapon,” he said.

“I think I’ll just keep it, thanks.”

He started to say something, seemed to think better of it, and then opened up the bike full throttle. I clung to his waist, closed my eyes, and hung on for dear life.

05:02:34:26

Nueve took us straight to the airport. I didn’t know if any back roads existed, but I wish they did: Alcoa Highway is one of the busiest streets in Knoxville, and at every stoplight more than a few drivers stared at the big kid dressed like an old lady on the back of a mud-spattered police motorcycle. And I worried we might run into a real cop. What clever cover story could Nueve invent to explain this?

I closed my eyes, pressed my cheek against Nueve’s back, and tried to organize my thoughts. That was an exercise I struggled with even in the best of circumstances, but I gave it a try anyway.

Mogart had a son. A son who, like me, had no idea what kind of business his father was wrapped up in until he was dead. Then somebody brings him his father’s head and tells him a kid named Alfred Kropp chopped it off with the sword of the Archangel Michael. So Jourdain comes to Knoxville looking for a little payback . . . or something else called the Thirteenth Skull, because somebody promised if he got it he’d get Excalibur back . . . Or did killing me have anything to do with the Skull and Excalibur at all? But if killing me didn’t have anything to do with it, why tell me about the Skull in the first place?