The Thirteenth Skull (Alfred Kropp #3)(57)

“Of course I have. I was an Operative Nine.”

“Well, he told me he was on ‘the last knightly quest for the Thirteenth Skull,’ which everybody knows is the Skull of Doom.”

“That is one of its names, yes. And if that is his ultimate goal, he is doomed to failure.”

“Why?”

“Because the Skull of Doom is a myth. It doesn’t exist.”

“How do you know?”

“I was an Operative Nine.”

“And that means what? You’re all-knowing like God?”

“Far from it.”

“Then how are you so sure it doesn’t exist?”

“Because we could find no evidence of its existence.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s a myth.”

He shook his head and waved one four-fingered hand.

“It doesn’t matter. Jourdain believes it exists, apparently, and that’s all that matters.”

“Which is the point I was trying to make! He somehow thinks killing me is going to help him get it.”

“It may be something far simpler than that.”

“Like what?”

“Like revenge.”

I thought about that. He was right, as usual. The why really didn’t matter. It didn’t even matter if killing me had anything to do with getting the Skull. The only thing that mattered was he wasn’t going to stop until I was dead.

“Right. On one side, a madman chasing a myth and on the other a sociopath on a crusade to lobotomize me. So we slip between them and head straight for headquarters.”

He said, “Headquarters.” His eyes cut away. The elephant was back.

“Only I’m not sure exactly where headquarters is, but you know and that’s where Abby Smith is.”

“Who may or may not be in a position to help us,” he said.

“We don’t have a choice.”

“No choice,” he said. He wadded up the wrapping from his sandwich and dropped it into the bag. Then he took his napkin and carefully wiped off the table.

“Why did you do it, Sam?”

He didn’t need to ask what I was talking about. He knew. “I was the Operative Nine.”

“And putting a bomb in my head was the thing-that-must-be-done?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“The reason was classified.”

“Declassify it. Now.”

He nodded. Swallowed. “I wish I had a drink,” he said softly, as if to himself.

I slid my Big Gulp toward him.

“Not that kind of drink,” he said.

“You’re not the Operative Nine anymore,” I said. “You’re my guardian. You owe me the truth.”

“The price for that is very high, Alfred.”

“Whatever it is, I’ll pay it.”

“It won’t be you who pays.”

“Tell me why you did it, Sam.”

He sighed and his voice now barely rose above a whisper.

“Sofia . . . Alfred. Because of Sofia.”

“Sofia. I’ve heard that name before.”

He didn’t say anything.

“I heard you saying it in your sleep at the hospital,” I reminded him. “ ‘Ghost from the past,’ you told me. Then I overheard Nueve and you arguing about her before we left, and Nueve said you were talking about the goddess of wisdom, but somehow I don’t think you were.”

“Hardly,” he said.

“When Mingus had me in his lab, I saw some vials of my blood labeled ‘sofa.’ And I thought that was really weird.

What did my blood have to do with sofas? It doesn’t have a damn thing to do with sofas, does it, Sam?”

“No.”

“So no more hints and half answers and riddles. Tell me who Sofia is and tell me now.”

He nodded. “Sofia isn’t a person, Alfred. Sofia is a thing. An acronym. Special Operational Force: Immortal Army. SOFIA.”

The room was quiet except for the humming of the heater by the window. Suddenly the room seemed very dark. I got up from the table and turned on the floor lamp by the bed.

“Catchy name,” I said. “Who came up with that?”

“The Operative Nine.” He didn’t turn to watch me this time. He sat very still, his back to me.

“The idea being my blood could be used to create some kind of supersoldier . . . ?”

“It was conceivable.”

“. . . An army whose soldiers are instantly healed on the battlefield, whose troops are immune to disease and injuries . . .” I saw it then—the only real use somebody like Nueve would have for my blood. I remembered what I said to Ashley at the airport, We wouldn’t want some kid with the power to heal the world running amok, healing the world, and felt sick to my stomach. “The possibilities are endless, aren’t they, Sam?”

“That it was a possibility made SOFIA necessary.”

“And SOFIA made the SD 1031 necessary.”

He nodded. “Necessary, yes.”

“Because the Operative Nine couldn’t risk the Item of Special Interest falling into the wrong hands.”

“The results could be catastrophic.”

“So he needed a way to keep a thumb on the Special Item—and a way to . . . terminate the experiment if that became—”