The Thirteenth Skull Read online

  “Oh, sure,” Kennard said. “I should have figured that.” He turned to Meredith. “Give me five minutes alone with him. Five minutes, all I need.”

  “I had a meeting this morning with the director,” I said. “And she asked for the—for something I have and I refused to give it back and I think she ordered ...” I swallowed hard. I always liked Abigail Smith. I always thought she was one of the good guys. “I think the Company might have done all this to get it back.”

  “The Company?”

  “OIPEP.”

  “Oy ... pep?” Kennard asked.

  “What do you have, Alfred?” she asked.

  I looked away. I wanted to talk to Samuel. I needed to talk to Samuel. He was OIPEP’s former Operative Nine, its top agent. He would be able to tell me if it had been a Company operation.

  But I didn’t have Samuel. And I didn’t have Mr. Needlemier. I didn’t have anybody.

  “I’ll tell you,” I said to Meredith Black. “But he’s got to leave first.”

  “I ain’t goin’ nowhere,” he said.

  “Then you better just take me to my cell,” I said.

  That produced a fierce whispering argument between them, an argument Detective Kennard lost, I guessed, because he pushed out of his chair so fast it fell over with a loud clang. He pointed a fat finger at my bandaged nose.

  “This ain’t done between us,” he promised.

  “You smell bad,” I said.

  He left. I looked at Meredith. I looked down at the tape recorder. The little spools were still turning. She pressed her finger on the off button. Her fingernails were painted a bright red, and I thought of Abigail Smith and her scarlet lipstick.

  “All right, Alfred,” she said softly.

  13:17:35:51

  We leaned across the table toward each other and we spoke barely above a whisper. I figured Detective Kennard had not gone far. I figured he was standing right behind the long mirror on the wall beside us.

  “All right, Alfred,” Meredith said.

  “First I want to know if Sam’s okay.”

  “Sam?”

  “The John Doe shot in the penthouse suite. He’s my guardian. Is he okay?”

  “He’s in intensive care at St. Mary’s.”

  “Will he live?”

  She slowly shook her head. She didn’t know.

  I stared at her for a few seconds. Then I said, “Do you know how my father died?”

  “The newspaper said it was a plane crash.”

  “It was a beheading.”

  It spewed out of me then, an eruption of words that I couldn’t hold back even if I wanted to. I told her everything. Of Excalibur and the secret order of knights that protected it. Of Mogart, who was my father’s heir until my father found out he had a son—me. Of Bennacio, my father’s best friend and the last knight on earth, who died trying to win the Sword back from Mogart. Of the chase that ended in Merlin’s Cave beneath the ruins of Camelot. Of my death and rebirth, and the death of Mogart.

  “How did Mogart die?” she asked.

  “He was beheaded,” I answered.

  “Him too?”

  “By me.”

  “You beheaded him?”

  “With Excalibur.”

  “King Arthur’s sword.”

  “Actually, Michael’s sword.”

  “Michael the secret agent of this OIPEP?”

  “Michael the Archangel of heaven.”

  “Heaven.”

  “You know.” I pointed toward the ceiling. “Heaven.”

  “Where is the Sword now?”

  I pointed at the ceiling again.

  “Right,” she said slowly, making it two words: “Rye-ite.”

  “What’s the matter?” I asked. “Don’t you believe in heaven?”

  “I just don’t understand why this OIPEP might want to kill you if you don’t have the Sword.”

  I almost said, “Because I have the Seal,” but I wasn’t sure I should tell her about the Great Seal of Solomon. She might frisk me and find it in my pocket. I bit my lip and looked away from her face.

  “You know how this must sound,” she said, not unkindly.

  “I know,” I admitted. “But it’s the truth.”

  “The truth,” she repeated.

  I looked back into her eyes and said, “You say you want the truth, but you really don’t because the truth is something that doesn’t belong to your world. You know, the world of this table and these chairs and that clock on the wall. It doesn’t fit, but that’s where I am, in the place that doesn’t fit and I don’t think it’s ever going to—fit I mean. If I could jump over this table back into your world right now, I’d do it. I’d do it in a heartbeat. But my world is holy swords and supersecret spy operations and angels who call me their ‘beloved.’ That’s why somebody tried to kill me today. That’s why those police officers are dead. I’m in big trouble and the guy who’s supposed to protect me is in even bigger trouble and we need somebody to help us. Can you help us, Detective Black? Please, because we really need somebody to help us.”

  She didn’t say anything at first. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was something about her, not in her looks really, that reminded me of my mother.

  “I’m going to do everything I can,” she said.

  13:15:18:09

  An hour later, I was alone in a cramped holding cell when Mr. Needlemier finally showed up.

  “Where have you been?” I asked.

  He dropped his briefcase on the cot and mopped his bald head with a monogrammed handkerchief.

  “I’m terribly sorry, Alfred. You didn’t tell them anything, did you?”

  “I told them everything.”

  He stared at me. He had just wiped his face, but it shone with moisture. “Everything everything?” he asked.

  “Pretty much everything,” I answered.

  “Well, that explains it.”

  “Explains what?”

  “They’re taking you to St. Mary’s Hospital.”

  “Why?”

  “They suspect you may be psychotic.”

  “Crazy, you mean.”

  “Well, who could blame them?”

  “St. Mary’s. That’s where they took Sam. Have you seen him?”

  He nodded.

  “How bad is it?” I asked.

  “It’s not good, Alfred. Not good.”

  “I want to see him.”

  “They’re not going to let you see him.”

  “I’ll need only about five minutes—”

  “First they have to do the evaluation—”

  “And then he’ll be fine. Like it never happened—”

  “And then you’ll have a hearing before the judge.”

  He finally got my attention.

  “What judge?”

  “To make a determination.”

  “A determination about what?”

  “Your ... let's see, the best way to put this ... your psychological ... ah ... readiness to stand trial.”

  “You mean if I’m too crazy to be found guilty.”

  He nodded. He seemed relieved that I got it. “Yes! Something along those lines.”

  “And what if the judge decides I’m crazy? I spend the rest of my life in an asylum?”

  He didn’t answer for a few minutes. “I told you not to say anything to them, Alfred.”

  “And if he decides I’m not crazy, there’s a trial and I go to prison for twenty years.”

  “Only if the jury finds you guilty.”

  I thought about it. “So what’s the strategy?”

  “Strategy?”

  “You do have a strategy for getting me out of this, right?”

  “Well, the very first thing I’m going to do is find you a good attorney.”

  I stared at him. “I thought you were my attorney.”

  “Technically, I’m the attorney for your father’s estate. And you wouldn’t want me for an attorney, Alfred.”

  “Why? Do you suck?”
r />   “Oh, no, I don’t suck. I’m quite good at what I do, but unfortunately, I don’t do criminal law.”

  He patted my knee.

  “Don’t pat my knee,” I said.

  He stopped patting my knee. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Like crap. My nose is broke. I’ve got fifty-nine million stitches in my arm and four thousand bruises all over my body and they think my butt might be cracked.”

  He frowned. “Aren’t all butts?”

  “I’m not kidding. I need you to call Abigail Smith for me. I used up my phone call on you.”

  “Who is Abigail Smith?”

  “The director of OIPEP.” I handed him her card.

  “OIPEP,” he murmured, staring at the card.

  “You remember.”

  “Unfortunately, I do.”

  “Tell her I want a meeting. Today. Even if that means she meets me in the psycho ward.”

  “Do you think her agency had something to do with this?”

  “Oh, you bet they’re near the top of my list.”

  I pushed the ring into his pudgy hand.

  “And I want you to keep this.”

  “This? Alfred, isn’t this ... ?”

  “The Seal of Solomon. Put it somewhere safe and don’t tell anyone where you’ve put it. Nobody, understand?”

  “Even you?”

  “Especially me.”

  He nodded. His fingers were shaking as he slipped the ring into his pocket.

  “He tried to warn me,” I said.

  “Who?”

  “Samuel. He said they could be ruthless.”

  “Apparently so.”

  “Unless it wasn’t them. But if it wasn’t them, who was it?”

  “Alfred, if I may offer some advice. Perhaps, given what happened today, you should give Ms. Smith and her associates what they want.”

  “They had their chance,” I said. “But I’ll think about it.”

  “It might be the price you have to pay.”

  “The price for what?”

  “For staying alive.”

  13:12:08:40

  A cruiser took me to St. Mary’s Hospital on Broadway, where I was escorted to the psych floor and put in a room with a door that locked from the outside. There wasn’t even a handle on the inside part of the door.

  There was no phone in the room, no TV, and everything was padded—the bed, the small dresser, even the corners of the windowsills. No sharp corners anywhere.

  I sat in a chair and played with this little metal ring that hung from the side of the bed. Another ring was at the foot, and two more on the opposite side. I realized the rings were for the straps they used to tie you down.

  A nurse’s aide came in with a tray and hung by the door while I ate. I told her I’d rather eat alone—it kind of creeped me out, her standing there—but she said that was against the rules. She avoided making eye contact with me.

  “When are they coming?” I asked.

  “Who?”

  “The experts who decide if I’m nuts or not.”

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “I just bring the food.”

  “Where’s ICU?”

  She didn’t say anything for a second. “Second floor.”

  She knocked on the door. It was opened by a huge orderly with a smushed-in face, like a bulldog. They left me alone. I crawled into bed. I was very tired. She had brought me a pain pill with the food and, though I really thought I shouldn’t, I took the pill.

  I closed my eyes. I tried to sleep and couldn’t. How was I getting out of a room with a door that had no handle, locked from the outside, and a huge orderly with a face like a bulldog posted in the hall?

  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 w
ith 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.”

  “Why?”

  He smiled. “The answer to that question, I would think, is obvious.”

  13:12:41:36

  Before he left, Nueve asked if there was anything else he could do. I told him yes, there was, and he promised he would arrange it.

  Then he studied my face for a long time without saying anything, until finally he said, “Does it not work on yourself?”

  “What?” I asked, but I knew what.

  “The healing power of your blood—you cannot use it to repair your own wounds?”

  I shook my head. “No. It doesn’t work on me.”

  “A gift, then—not a treasure,” he whispered. “You carry a special burden, Alfred Kropp.”

  He paused at the door. “Allow me a few moments to make the arrangements, yes?”

  He pressed a small object into my hand. It looked like a ballpoint pen.

  “What’s this?”

  “Open it and see.”

  I pulled off the cap, exposing a tiny hole at the top of the cylinder.

  “Press the button on the side.”

  I pressed and a hypodermic needle sprang from the hole.

  “Only a single dose, but the poison metabolizes almost instantaneously, completely paralyzing the victim.”

  The needle glittered wickedly in the fluorescent lights. “For how long?” I asked.

  “Depends on the subject. Up to five minutes. Press the button again.”