by Rick Yancey
“Step up,” the same voice said, and now I was walking on wooden planks. I shivered in the cold. The air around me suddenly got warmer; I was inside. Somebody pulled the hood off. I squinted in the light, though it wasn’t really that bright inside.
We were standing in a little entryway to a cabin, or maybe in France you call it a château. Wooden floors, a cathedral ceiling, and a huge fireplace. About a dozen guys milled about and I could smell bacon frying. Suddenly I was the hungriest I had ever been in my life. My knees were actually weak.
“So what would you guys like? Shower first, or breakfast?”
“Alfred needs to eat,” Bennacio said.
“All I had was some cheese and grapes,” I said to no one in particular. No one in particular seemed to be listening.
33
An agent named Jeff laid out ham and bacon, biscuits, eggs, sugary things somebody said was beignets (a kind of French doughnut that I ate six of), a couple of T-bones, coffee, juice, hot tea, and fresh hot chocolate. Mike was a big Cubs fan and he talked with this other guy, Paul, about their chances this year and the problem was their bullpen like it was every other year. Bennacio sat beside me, nibbled on some toast with strawberry jam, sipped coffee, and said nothing.
After breakfast, Mike led us up the stairs to the second floor and showed us the bathrooms where we could wash up. I stripped down and laid my clothes outside the door as Mike suggested, so they could be washed while Bennacio and I took our showers.
I stood for a long time under the hot spray. I think I may have had jet lag, because I kept dropping the soap, and everything seemed to be taking a very long time to accomplish: it seemed washing my hair took at least a couple of hours.
I stood in the shower until my fingertips pruned up; then I dried off and slipped into a white terry-cloth robe that I found hanging on a hook by the shower. The bathroom was very small and I kept knocking into the sink and hitting my elbows on the walls, but I felt better with a full stomach and a clean body. I found a toothbrush and some paste in the medicine cabinet and scrubbed my teeth. Brushing my teeth made me think of my mother, who was a real stickler for oral hygiene—I’d never had a cavity in my life.
I was late getting back downstairs. The meeting had already started without me. Mike, Jeff, and Paul were sitting on the sofa in the great room, with Bennacio sitting by himself in the rough-hewn rocking chair near the fire.
A lady sat next to Mike. She had large lips that looked very red and wet-looking in the firelight. Her platinum-blond hair was pulled into a tight bun on top of her head. She wore a pinstriped business suit and black high heels.
I leaned against the wooden beam in the entryway, feeling kind of silly in my bare feet, my hair still wet. Bennacio was fully dressed. Nobody acknowledged my presence. Mike was talking.
“So it’s all set up,” he was saying. “Last night I got final approval from headquarters. I can’t tell you how much, that’s classified, but I will say we think we’ve topped the highest bid by at least half a billion.”
He stopped, almost as if he was waiting for an answer from Bennacio. He didn’t get an answer, though. Bennacio said nothing. He was staring at the fire.
Mike pulled a piece of foil from his pocket, carefully wrapped his used gum in it, and slipped it back into his pocket. He popped another piece of gum into his mouth, wrapped up the foil, and just as carefully put the fresh foil into his pocket.
The lady with the shiny blond hair spoke up. She had a British accent. “Honestly, we think that was his plan from the beginning, to sell the Sword to us.”
“Really?” Bennacio said. “You presume much.”
“Who else could he turn to?” she asked. “We represent the richest countries in the world. And he can trust us. Not even the Dragon wants to see the whole world go up in flames.”
“Right, Benny-boy, that’s right!” Mike said. “I mean, how’s he going to enjoy his money in a nuclear wasteland? He’s known from the beginning he has to sell it to the good guys.”
“I have told you,” Bennacio said. “Mogart does not intend to give you the Sword. He will never part with it.”
“How come?” Mike was smiling at Bennacio, a hard, unfriendly smile.
“Would you?”
“Hey, come on now, Benny. We’re the good guys, remember? We’re all on the same side here, right?”
“He will take your money and keep the Sword.”
“World domination, huh? King Mogart. Well, we’re just gonna have to take our chances on that one, Benny.”
“You are a fool,” Bennacio said, turning away from the fire and glaring at Mike. “He will betray you.”
“That’s precisely why we’ve invited you to the party.” Mike turned to the British lady. “Right, Abby?”
Abby said, “We will not make the exchange until you’ve verified the Sword’s authenticity.”
“And then OIPEP returns the Sword of Righteousness to us, its friends,” Bennacio said. Now he was the one smiling hard and unfriendly.
“I’m gonna be honest with you, Benny. That’s not our call,” Mike said. “Point of fact you guys didn’t do such a hot job of protecting it in the first place.”
“We have protected it for a thousand years,” Bennacio shot back. “Only by a freakish accident was it lost.”
Mike glanced over his shoulder at me, the freakish accident. Then he looked at Bennacio, smiled and shrugged, as if to say, Look, buddy, you couldn’t even protect it from this big loser.
“Bennacio,” Abby said in a kind voice. “We have nothing but admiration for what your Order has accomplished. But perhaps the time has come for the Sword to pass on to different protectors. Why else would Samson involve us?”
“Abby’s got her hands around the issue’s throat, Benny,” Mike said. “There’s nobody on the planet better equipped to keep it safe.”
Bennacio wasn’t buying it. “I will not do this without your assurance the Sword will be returned to me.”
“Like I said, Benny, we can’t promise that,” Mike answered. “I’ve always been straight with you and I respect the heck out of you and your knightly buds. We wouldn’t dream of busting your chops. But I will give you my personal guarantee The Company has no intention of using the Sword for any purpose. We want the same thing you want: to keep it out of the hands of all the baddies and loonies.”
“I cannot betray my solemn oath,” Bennacio said. “By my life or death I will hold and protect it. I can do no less. If Mogart indeed returns the Sword, you must kill me to keep it from me.”
“Nobody wants to do that,” Abby said. She didn’t say they wouldn’t kill Bennacio, though.
“Benny,” Mike said. “We’re a go whether you come along or not. We’re just waiting for the Dragon to get back to us on the time and location for delivery of the Sword. We—I—want you along, of course, and once we get the Sword back, everything’s negotiable. Let’s take it one step at a time.”
Bennacio sighed. Nobody said anything for a long time. Paul picked at a hangnail. Jeff smoothed creases I couldn’t see on his pants. Mike smacked his gum. Abby was the only one looking at Bennacio.
Finally, he stirred in his chair and said, “I will come, on one condition.”
“You name it.”
“The vengeance is mine.”
“ ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ ” Mike cracked, but nobody laughed.
34
I went back upstairs and found my clothes in the bedroom. Somebody had washed and laid them on the small bed by the window. I pulled back the curtains to look out, but there was nothing to look at: The window was boarded up. Secure location. As if I would know where I was in France. The only way I’d know is if I looked out and saw the Eiffel Tower in the backyard.
I dressed and sat on the bed. I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want to go back downstairs. Being around Mike and his gang of spies or whatever they were made me feel kind of twitchy.
There was a soft tap on the door and Bennacio ca
me in. He closed the door and sat down beside me.
“Do you trust them?” I asked.
“Would you?”
I thought about it. “No choice?”
“We must use the tools given us, even those that are double-edged.”
“How’d they find out about the Sword in the first place?”
“When the Sword was lost, Samson realized at once we would need their help. I counseled against it, but now I understand the bitter necessity of it, though it cost us our greatest loss since the founding of our Order.”
“I thought I caused that.”
He frowned at me. “I am not speaking of the Sword.”
“They’re not going to let you have it, are they?”
“I think not.”
“How’re you going to stop them?”
“I will do as I always have done: all that I must to protect it.”
“Bennacio, you can’t kill them.”
He sighed. “Long ago, Alfred, I took a solemn oath as binding as gravity. I know of no other way.”
“Well, I’m not sure exactly what you’re trying to say, Bennacio. Maybe because I’ve never taken any kind of oath like that. I’ve never taken any kind of oath period.”
He looked at me with those deep-set, intense eyes.
“Why not?”
“I guess I never had the chance.”
“All of us have that chance. But we either choose not to or do not recognize it when it comes. On the plane, when I told you I believed all happens for a purpose, you thought of your uncle’s death, and you wondered how something so seemingly useless could serve any purpose. In the past, Alfred, men cast about for reasons to believe. Now we find reasons not to.”
“I’m not following you, Bennacio.”
“The human race has grown arrogant, and in its arrogance assumes nothing is beyond the power of its reason. If we see no purpose, it follows there must be no purpose. It is the fallacy of our times.”
“Bennacio,” I said. “You can’t just kill them. For every one of them you kill, they’ll send a dozen to come after you. Sooner or later they’ll find you, and I don’t care how powerful the Sword is, they’ll get it from you somehow. And then they’ll kill you.”
“Perhaps,” he answered. “Yet mercy has cost us much. If I had killed you the night you took the Sword, your friends and mine would still be alive and the Sword would still be safe.”
“Yeah, but I’d be dead.”
He laughed, then patted me on the knee and stood up.
“I think I shall miss you, Alfred Kropp, when this is over.”
He left me alone. I sat there for a few minutes, thinking. Mostly I was thinking the last knight was going to buy the farm. Either Mogart would kill him or the agents of OIPEP would.
I was convinced that Mike’s plan was to use Bennacio to help get the Sword, and then kill him (and probably me). That’s what Natalia meant when she told me I had sentenced Bennacio to death.
Thinking about Natalia made me feel especially rotten, though I’m not sure why. It’s not easy being hated by anybody, but it’s especially hard when the person who hates you also happens to be the prettiest girl you’ve ever seen.
35
Later that afternoon I was lying on my bed, thinking, when overhead I heard the slow thumpa-thumpa of a helicopter, growing louder as it approached. From downstairs there was clumping and bumping as the spies ran around in a panic, shouting at each other and looking for their guns.
I heard Mike shouting, “Breached! We’ve been breached!”
I jumped out of bed and ran into the hallway, where I literally bumped into Bennacio. He was wearing his brown robe and carrying his black sword.
“Mogart?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Something worse, I fear.”
I tried to imagine something worse than Mogart. I followed Bennacio downstairs into the great room. Jeff and Paul corralled us and told us to stand back. Mike and Abby went to the front door and flung it open. Over their shoulders I could see a black attack helicopter landing on the sloping ground in the front yard. A big man wearing a black sweater jumped out. He reached into the helicopter and helped out a smaller person.
Mike’s shoulders relaxed and he stuck the gun under his Windbreaker as the two people walked up the gravel path to the front door.
Abby glared at Bennacio. “Do you have an explanation for this?” she asked.
Mike stepped back, and then Cabiri came into the room, Natalia right behind him. She ignored Mike and Abby and rushed over to Bennacio. As she passed me, I could smell her hair—peaches.
“Hello!” Cabiri called to nobody in particular. “Hello, hello! And how is everyone? How are all my secret-agent friends?”
Mike slammed the door, threw the dead bolt, and whirled on Bennacio.
“You got an explanation for this?” he shouted.
“I’ve already asked him that, Michael,” Abby said coldly.
“Please, do not hold Lord Bennacio responsible,” Cabiri said. “This is entirely my doing.” He gave an apologetic smile. “Scusi.”
“Save your ‘scusis,’ pal,” Mike shot back, as the thumpa-thumpas of the helicopter grew fainter. “How did you find us?”
“Oh,” Cabiri said, “how does the fox find the chicken? How does the bird find the worm?” He smiled at Bennacio.
“You called them,” Mike said, turning to Bennacio.
“How might I call them?” Bennacio asked. “I have no telephone.”
“I am a Friend of the Sword,” Cabiri said to Mike, his voice losing its jokey edge. “And Friends of the Sword have friends who have friends. Do you think your presence has gone unnoticed in Saint Étienne?”
Mike didn’t seem to be listening. He brushed passed Cabiri and bounded up the stairs, dialing his cell phone as he went. A door slammed above us and I could hear Mike’s voice as he shouted to someone on the phone, but I couldn’t make out the words. Abby sighed.
Cabiri said to Bennacio, “Forgive me, my lord. It was not my decision to come here.” He was looking at Natalia.
Nastalia was looking at Bennacio.
“I am coming with you,” she said, her chin tilted up in defiance.
“You know you cannot,” Bennacio answered, but not unkindly.
“And I,” Cabiri said.
“No.”
“Who then will stand by you when the test comes?” Natalia demanded. “Her?” And she jerked her head toward Abby.
“My name is Abigail,” she said. “And you are?”
“Or him?” And now Natalia jerked her head toward me.
“Do not underestimate my friend Alfred Kropp,” Bennacio said. “There is more to him than meets the eye.”
“Then there is much indeed!” Cabiri said heartily, and he slapped me on the back. “For he is substantial!”
Mike came bounding down the stairs then, and jabbed his finger at Cabiri’s nose.
“You are interfering with a matter of international security, mister!”
“Perhaps you should shoot me.”
“Enough!” Bennacio said, and everybody shut up and stared at him. “They should not have come, but they have and so we must make the best of it. When Mogart calls, Cabiri will stay here with my daughter. I will return for them both once we have the Sword.”
That ended the discussion. None of the OIPEP people seemed happy about it, but they couldn’t come up with a good argument for sending Cabiri and Natalia away. There was some discussion of sleeping arrangements, since all the bedrooms were taken. Then Jeff volunteered to sleep on the sofa downstairs so Natalia could have his room. Cabiri decided he would bunk with me.
“For you and I are the only Friends here,” he told me. “It will be delightful, Alfred Kropp! Only I must warn you of my snoring and my flatulence.”
Bunking with Cabiri didn’t turn out to be delightful. He had been telling the truth about his snoring and farting.
Natalia and Bennacio holed up in his room for hours, an
d I could hear their voices through the walls as they argued. Sometimes I could hear her crying.
When she wasn’t in the bedroom, she would be in the great room, sitting in the rocker by the fireplace, staring at the flames, her knees drawn up to her chest, her dark eyes reflecting the firelight. Sometimes she passed close to me coming down the hall or in the kitchen at dinner, and each time she passed I smelled peaches and thought of being a little kid, turning the handle of the ice cream churn while Mom dropped fresh peaches into its belly.
Natalia barely spoke to me, but sometimes I would catch her staring at me and she would look away quickly.
Then one night Cabiri’s flatulence chased me from the room (his farts seemed to gather underneath the covers and attack any time I rolled over, fluffing the blankets). I padded downstairs, thinking maybe I’d wake up Jeff for a game of poker or pool. But Jeff wasn’t on the sofa; Natalia was, curled up under a blanket, wide-awake, staring at the dying embers in the fireplace.
I stood for a second at the bottom of the stairs. I thought about going into the kitchen for a snack, but that was like covering up for disturbing her and didn’t seem cool at all.
“Hi,” I finally decided to say.
She didn’t answer.
“I, um, I couldn’t sleep. Cabiri won’t stop farting.”
She still didn’t say anything.
“Look,” I said, taking a step into the room. “About what happened in Halifax . . . it’s okay.”
She slid her dark eyes in my direction. I felt like a bug on a pin when she looked at me.
“What is okay?” she asked.
“You know, the fact that you kneed me in the groin.”
“I should have stabbed you.”
“Sure, I understand that.” I eased myself into the rocker across from her.
She was looking at the fire again.
“Who are you?” she asked softly.
She whipped her head in my direction, her dark hair flying to her right shoulder.
“Who are you, that you have done this?”
“I was just a kid trying to help out his uncle.”
