by Rick Yancey
“Boy Howdy!” Mike yelled. “That was close, huh? Took heavy casualties, but we kinda expected that goin’ in, right? The main thing is we got the Sword. Got the Sword and saved the world, not bad for a night’s work, huh?”
I leaned back, the Sword against my chest, still breathing heavily.
Mike said, “Pretty quick thinking back there, Al. You and Benny plan it that way, or was it all your idea?”
I didn’t say anything. That didn’t seem to matter to Mike. He kept talking.
“Darn it, dropped my cell back there in the fight. Well, everybody’s on standby anyway. Me and Jeff have been together since Cairo—that wacky death-cult thing in the Valley of Kings. But, oh, jeez, enough about that, that’s all classified. Anyway, I’m gonna miss that son of a gun and what a dingy-darn shame about Benny, huh? Heck of a guy. Heck of a guy. If I had my cell I’d call in a couple of Stealths and knock the living you-know-what out of that medieval madman, take out those thousand-year-old rocks with him. Small price to pay, don’t ya think?”
“Did you kill him?” I asked.
He laughed. “What do you think, Al?”
“I don’t think you did.” I sat up and pressed the tip of the blade against Mike’s neck.
He didn’t react, except his hands tightened slightly on the wheel.
“Stop the car, Mike.”
“Hey, Al. Ally boy. What the heck are you doing?”
“Stop the car, Mike.”
He slowed down and pulled to the side of the road.
“Okay, now what? Talk to me, Al. What’s this all about?”
I wasn’t sure. I was making this up as I went along. “Give me your gun. No, Mike, with your left hand. Keep the right on the wheel. Slowly, Mike.” I took the gun from over his left shoulder and slipped it under my belt.
“Okay,” I said. “Now put your left hand back on the wheel.”
“Al, I’m one of the good guys, remember?” His voice was calm enough, but he was working the gum hard. “Look, nobody’s sorrier about Benny than me. That was a damn shame, but you were there, you saw—what did you want me to do about it?”
“You set him up.”
“Ah, come on, Al!”
“You planned it from the beginning. Mogart didn’t want just the money. He wanted Bennacio too.”
Mike didn’t have anything to say to that. He was watching me in the rearview mirror. I knew I was right when he didn’t say anything.
“And you set up Mr. Samson and the rest of the knights in Spain. You tipped off Mogart they were coming.”
He shook his head, smiling now. “Why would I do that, Alfred?”
“Because you both knew the same thing: As long as the knights lived, they were the only hope of ever keeping the Sword safe. You both needed them out of the way. So you made them part of the deal.”
“Man, that’s a pretty interesting theory, Al.”
“Mr. Samson trusted you to do the right thing,” I said. “He didn’t have to tell you about the Sword and you double-crossed him. Bennacio knew you were double-crossing us tonight, but he didn’t see how he had a choice. He took a vow, see . . . he gave his word . . .”
“Look, Al, no offense, I know you mean well and everything, but you’re in this thing way over your head. Put down the Sword, pal. We’ll talk about this on the plane, okay? Don’t you want to go home?”
“I don’t have a home anymore.”
“Really?” He whistled. “That’s gotta be tough. I’m truly sorry to hear that, Al. Well, we could take you anywhere you want to go. Natalia is still at the château. You wanna see her? You got kind of a thing for her, don’t you?”
I didn’t say anything, but I could feel my face get hot. Mike Arnold noticed me blushing and smiled.
“Get out of the car,” I said.
“Al . . .”
I pushed on his neck with the tip of the Sword.
“Okay, I’m getting out.”
He opened his door and stepped onto the road. I got out and pointed the gun at his head.
“Get down on your stomach and fold your hands on the back of your head.”
“You’re making a huge mistake here, Al. A heck of a boner . . .”
“Lay down, Mike. I’ll shoot if you don’t.”
“You think so? I’m sorry, Al, but I really don’t think you can.”
He took a step toward me and the gun went off. We both jumped. Neither of us was expecting that. I couldn’t even remember pulling the trigger.
“All righty then,” Mike said softly. He lay down.
“Hands on the back of your head,” I told him.
He laced his fingers behind his head.
“Where do you think you’re gonna go, Alfred? You can’t get out of the country, and what are you goin’ to do with the Sword? Take over the world? Donate it to the Smithsonian? You’re not thinking this through, kid.”
“Good-bye, Mike,” I said, and I climbed into the car and drove off. I kept looking in the rearview mirror, but I never saw Mike get up.
44
The steering wheel was on the wrong side and I had trouble keeping the car on the road; the right wheels kept dropping off the road until I remembered I was supposed to be driving on the left side. That made it a little better, but it still felt funny. I knew I needed to ditch the car as soon as possible: A Bentley’s a little too conspicuous for a getaway car.
I drove aimlessly through the English countryside, not even knowing what direction I was heading. I kept going until I came to a road that looked bigger and kept taking bigger roads until I came to a highway or whatever they’re called in England, and after a few miles passed a sign that read: “London 40 miles.”
The traffic began to pick up as I got closer to the city. I drove with both hands on the wheel, my knuckles bone white, the Sword lying on the seat beside me. I couldn’t stop yawning, and all I wanted to do was pull to the side of the road and go to sleep, but I kept driving.
The sun was rising by the time I reached the outskirts of London. I was definitely not driving into the heart of the city in a hot Bentley, so I pulled into the first hotel I saw in a place called Slough. I took off my jacket and wrapped the Sword in it, but that left the butt of the gun sticking up from my waistband in full view. I worried what to do about this and if the clerk would wonder why this fifteen-year-old kid was checking in without any bags or parents, and why I had a jacket in the shape of a large sword. But some things you can’t do anything about, so I pushed the gun all the way down, into my underwear. The cold metal of the barrel pressed against my groin.
The hotel looked old, as if it had been something else before it was a hotel, maybe a nobleman’s country estate. The lobby was very small, and just felt old compared to the American hotels I had been in. The clerk didn’t say anything about my sword-shaped jacket. He put me in a room on the third floor, and told me I’d have to take the stairs because there was no lift. He asked how long I’d be staying. I told him I was taking a walking tour of England and I’d leave when I was tired of walking. He didn’t ask anything else. He didn’t smile once, and I thought maybe he had bad teeth. I had read somewhere that’s a problem in England.
In the stairwell, I took the gun out of my underwear and kind of tucked it under my arm. The hall was narrow and there were water stains on the baseboard. The paint job and carpet looked at least ten years old and smelled of mold. My room was at the end of the hall, next to the bathroom.
My bed was narrow, about six feet long, and shook a little when I sat on it. I was afraid it was going to break. I thought about calling the front desk and asking if they had rooms with bigger beds. I put the gun on the bedside table and laid the Sword down on the bed beside me. I took off my shoes, peeled off my wet socks, and lay down.
What was I going to do with the Sword now? Mike had a good point. They’d lock down the whole country and go door-to-door if they had to. They’d find the Bentley parked in the hotel parking lot, and I hadn’t even used a fake name to check
in.
I expected a knock on the door any second, but they probably wouldn’t knock, just burst in with guns blazing, because after all, I had the Sword of Kings and might use it to take over the world.
I yawned. I needed sleep, but my instincts told me sleep should probably be the last thing on my to-do list. I pushed myself off the bed. On the wall next to the TV was a mirror. I looked at myself and decided I probably should take a shower, but that would mean leaving the room, and I didn’t want to take the Sword with me into the shower or leave it in the room. I looked in the mirror and thought about Mogart calling me fat. I wasn’t fat; I was just big. I had always been big and blocky, like one of those blocks at Stonehenge, wide and rectangular, the most boring shape next to a square there is.
I sat back on the bed and tried to figure out my next move. I couldn’t stay here long—no more than a few hours. I should shower and brush my teeth and go, except I didn’t have a toothbrush. I didn’t have anything except the most powerful weapon on earth. I could declare myself the Emperor Kropp, King Alfred the First, Lord of the Earth, but right then all I wanted was a toothbrush.
If I made myself king, I could summon all the world’s leaders to Slough and declare world peace. I could demand all the tanks and bombs and guns be melted down and turned into playground equipment. I could tell all the rich countries to feed the poor ones and outlaw war and tell them from now on every penny they used to spend on weapons they now had to spend on finding cures for diseases and making cars that burn clean fuel. I could demand the end to every evil under the sun. No more war or disease or famine. I could fulfill what Bennacio said was the reason the archangel gave the Sword to Arthur: I could unite mankind. I could finish what Arthur started. It might not bring Bennacio back, or Samson and the knights, or Uncle Farrell, or anyone who was lost because of me, but it might make up for what I had done. It might even make Natalia not hate me anymore.
Maybe my destiny was to be the sword-wielding savior of the world, and wouldn’t that just make Amy Pouchard regret not giving me her cell phone number! I had a vision of myself on a great throne, with a great big golden crown on my great big head.
The cold I had felt coming on was now fully on: My head hurt, my nose was running, and my forehead was hot. I lay on the bed and told myself in a minute I would get up and take a cool shower to bring my fever down and be ready to think more clearly. It’s pretty sad when you reach the point of scheduling your clear thinking.
“That’s it. You’ve figured it all out, Kropp,” I told myself. I was pretty feverish by this point. “The Knights of the Sacred Order kept the Sword hidden for a thousand years, waiting for Alfred Kropp to come along and save the world. Right! It never occurred to any of them, from Bedivere on down, that maybe one of them could take up the Sword and bring peace to this rotten world. They were waiting for you, Mr. big-headed high school dropout, to take care of things.”
I touched the cold metal of the blade—after a thousand years, how smooth and perfect it was! Just touching it made me happy and sad at the same time.
Eventually, I fell asleep, and I was back in the dream of the dark rider on the terrible battlefield, the Sword in the rider’s hand. Just as he was about to slam the blade into the ground and blow away his enemies, he lifted his head and I could see his face. It was my face. Not Kropp the Benign . . . but Kropp the Conqueror, Kropp the Terrible.
When I opened my eyes again the room was dark and the phone was ringing. I turned on the table lamp and wondered how long I had been asleep. I stared at the phone on the bedside table and wondered who was calling. Maybe the front desk, to tell me some guys in black robes were waiting for me down in the lobby.
I picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Bonjour, Mr. Kropp.”
I picked up Mike’s gun from the bedside table and held it in my lap.
“Mr. Mogart.”
“Are you watching television?”
“Excuse me?”
“Is there a television in your room? If so, I suggest you turn it to channel one.”
“Right now?”
“Immediately.”
“I’m gonna have to put the phone down.”
“That’s quite all right.”
I set the phone down and turned on the TV. The BBC news had just started. About five minutes into the show, they ran a story about the American attorney general’s news conference that afternoon. He was announcing an update to the FBI’s most wanted list. Before they flashed the photograph on the screen, I knew what I would see.
It was my picture.
The attorney general was saying I was an international fugitive with ties to terrorists and was responsible for the deaths of sixteen British and American personnel in an attempt to destroy one of England’s most famous national treasures. Then he announced the Justice Department was offering a six-million-dollar reward for information leading to my capture and conviction.
The big-headed loser was finally tops in something: I was the most-wanted fugitive in the entire world, but all I could think of was how difficult it would be now to assemble my summit of world leaders and declare the founding of the Kingdom of Kropptopia.
I turned the set off and went back to the phone.
“I’m back,” I said.
“Congratulations, Mr. Kropp. You are a celebrity. Perhaps you will even make the cover of People magazine.”
“How—how did you find me, Mr. Mogart?”
I walked over to the window as I talked. I pulled back the curtain, expecting to see a SWAT team or their British counterparts storming the building. But all I could see was the empty parking lot and some woods. To my left, the dirty yellow lights of London glowed on the horizon.
“A fifteen-year-old boy—and not a particularly clever boy at that—alone in a strange country, afraid and without friends, driving a car equipped with a Global Positioning System—how difficult do you think that really is?”
“I guess not too difficult,” I said.
I sat back down on the bed.
“I know what you want, Mr. Mogart. But, see, if I give it to you it’s going to mean the end of the world. I’m only fifteen, like you said, and it’s really important to me that the world sticks around for a while, at least until I’m forty. Maybe fifty, even.”
“Ah, but you are missing the point, Alfred,” Mogart said. It was the first time he had called me by my first name. “Whether you live to fifty is of little importance to me. I want only one thing, so you see we are both equally disadvantaged. You have something I want and I have something you want.”
“What?” I asked, since I couldn’t think of a single thing I had left that mattered. Everybody who mattered to me was dead. But that wasn’t true and the funny thing was that, of the two of us, Mogart was the only one who knew it.
“Kropp.”
It took a second for it to sink in that the voice on the other end wasn’t Mogart’s. It wasn’t even a man’s voice.
“Kropp,” she whispered again.
“Natalia?”
I heard a little screech, then silence, and Mogart’s voice came back.
“Understand, Mr. Kropp, that I care not for what I have, as you care not for what you have. I would sacrifice my life for what you possess, as you would sacrifice yours for what I possess. To my mind, there is only one way to satiate our particular desires. Are you following me, Mr. Kropp?”
“Wouldn’t it have been easier just to come here and take it from me?” My voice was shaking badly.
“Why should I come there for it, Mr. Kropp, when you are bringing it to me?”
Just then I heard a sharp rap on the door. I jumped and gave a little yelp.
Mogart said, “Someone is at your door. Open it.”
“I have a gun,” I said. “I’ll use it.”
“Do so and she dies.”
The rapping on the door continued.
“Who’s at my door?” I asked.
“Answer it and find out. I’ll wait.”
/>
I walked to the door and called out, “Who is it?”
“Your escort, Mr. Kropp,” came a voice from the other side. I unlocked the door and shuffled backwards, lifting the gun, so when he walked into the room it was pointed right at his nose.
“Don’t even think about going toward that bed,” I told him.
He nodded. He was a big man, about my size. He wore a long gray cape over his shoulders, fastened by a dragon-shaped pin just below his Adam’s apple. Under the cape, he was dressed in an expensive tailored suit. His long hair was greased and combed back from his face.
“Stand right there,” I added, backing toward the bed, keeping the gun on him. He nodded again. “Don’t make any sudden moves!” I said sharply to him. He nodded a third time. I picked up the receiver with my left hand and brought it to my ear.
“Mr. Kropp,” Mogart said softly. “I believe I told you some time ago that the will of most men is weak. Thus nations crumble and decay, great enterprises are lost, needless suffering and humiliation ensue. I believe I also told you—in fact, demonstrated to you in the most graphic way—what would happen if your will opposed mine. You will accompany my associate to our little meeting or the girl will die.”
My knees completely gave out then and I sat on the bed. The gun dropped to my side. I had made a vow and if I kept that vow, Natalia would die. I felt so miserable at that point, I almost picked up the Sword and handed it to the escort, who was still standing by the door, smiling at me.
Mogart’s voice lost all its playfulness and it got hard.
“Listen carefully, Kropp. You are not adept at what you’re attempting to do. You are a boy playing a man’s game. You might be enjoying this make-believe game of being a hero, but truly you are fortunate that I found you first.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I screamed into the phone. “I never wanted to be a hero! I never wanted any of this!”
“They are coming, Mr. Kropp. Remember the report you just saw on television? The OIPEPs are coming for you and they will find you. And when they find you, they will take the Sword and I will kill the girl. You will have lost both. You have no choice now but to bring it to me.”
