The Thirteenth Skull (Alfred Kropp #3)(9)

I don’t know how much time passed—they took my watch and there wasn’t a clock in the room—when I heard the door lock snap open.

A man stepped into the room. He wasn’t wearing a doctor’s white lab coat. He was wearing a tailored suit. The suit was blue. The tie was red. The hair was long and dark and the eyes even darker. He was carrying a black cane with a gold handle, though he didn’t walk with any limp that I could see.

I sat up and pulled the covers to my chin. You don’t really appreciate the meaning of the world “vulnerable” until you’re trapped in a room with a stranger and all you’re wearing is a flimsy hospital gown.

He pulled the chair closer to the bed, a small, ironic smile playing on his full lips. They looked almost too fat for his thin face. He placed the cane’s tip between his immaculately shined black shoes and rested both hands on the gold head.

Then he smiled. He had a great smile. The only person I knew who had a better one was Abigail Smith.

“Alfred Kropp, at last we meet.”

He wasn’t American. I’m no good with accents, but it sounded Spanish.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I am your attending physician, Dr. R. U. Nutts. That is a joke, of course, but I note you are not laughing. You may call me Nueve.”

“Noy-vey?”

“Sí. Nueve.”

I said, “What do you want, Mr. Nueve?” I glanced toward the closed door. I might be able to get to it before he could stop me, bang on it, howl my lungs out, and hope the big orderly bulldog man opened it—but this Nueve got past him somehow, so there were no guarantees he would rush in to save me.

“Please, I shall call you Alfred and you shall call me Nueve. Just Nueve, por favor.”

“Just Nueve,” I echoed. He was resting his chin on his hands, sort of balancing his finely shaped head on the top of the black cane. “I got a D in Spanish last year, but I’m pretty sure nueve means nine.”

He smiled, this time without showing his beautiful teeth.

“You’re the Company’s new Operative Nine, aren’t you?” I asked. “The Superseding Protocol Agent, the one above all the rules.”

“I am here on behalf of Director Smith,” Nueve said. “She sends her apologies that she cannot personally answer your summons. She is en route to headquarters.”

“She’s out of the country?”

He nodded.

“But you’re not. Why?”

He smiled.

“Maybe you’re here to check on a special delivery,” I said.

He laughed softly. “Do you really think the Company had anything to do with that?”

“Actually, I do.”

“The work of rank amateurs. Complicated, risky, over-the-top theatrics. If you had been targeted by us, believe me, you would not now be enjoying these fine accommodations. You would be dead.”

“I have the Seal,” I said. “You’re the only people who know I have it. You want it. Who else would come after me for it?”

“Why do you presume the Seal is their goal? Perhaps it is simpler than that—or more complex.”

“All I know is twenty minutes after I told you people I was keeping the Seal some guy showed up and wasted my friend, stabbed me, and blew himself up.”

He shrugged.

“So you’re saying OIPEP had nothing to do with this?” I asked.

“I am here on the direction of Director Smith, who said you wanted to speak to us.”

“And you, OIPEP’s SPA, head honcho in the black ops department, just happened to be in town on the same day an assassin shows up to kill me.”

“Call it serendipity.”

“If you kill me, you’ll never get your hands on it.”

“I have no intention of killing you, Alfred. You are far too valuable to us alive. Perhaps as a gesture of goodwill, the Company could bring its resources to bear in finding those responsible for this most heinous and wicked attack.”

“That would be really sweet of you guys. What about me?”

“You?”

“Extracting me. Isn’t that what you call it? Extract me from this interface. Make these charges go away.”

“That would prove a bit more complicated, I’m afraid.”

“But you could.”

He smiled, this time blessing me with an eyeful of his gorgeous orthodontics.

“And what in exchange for the benefits of such an extraction?” He was talking about the Seal. I said, “It was never about killing me, was it?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Mr. Delivery Dude. He wasn’t supposed to kill me. The whole thing was a setup, to put me in a bind so I’d have to make a deal.”

“Killing you seems more expeditious.”

“But for all you knew I hid the Seal and told nobody where I hid it. If you killed me, you might never get it back. So you had to keep me alive but stick me in a trap only you could get me out of.”

“You give me too much credit, Alfred. Even I would not anticipate your, shall we say, ruthless response to the attack this morning. Are you refusing to hand over the item?”

“If I hand it over now, there’s no reason for you to let me live.”

“As I’ve said, you’re far more useful to us alive than dead.”