The Thirteenth Skull (5 page)

“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.”

“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.”

I pressed, and the needle retracted.

“Why are you giving it to me?”

One of his eyebrows rose toward his dark, perfectly coiffed hair.

“You should refrain from asking questions to which you already know the answer, Alfred. It could create the impression that you are not as smart as you really are.”

He tapped lightly on the door with the head of his walking stick. “Until our next meeting, Alfred Kropp.”

“I'm really hoping there won't be one.”

“The odds are against that.”

Bulldog-Face Man opened the door. Nueve stepped quickly into the hall and the door swung closed behind him.

I sat on the bed and waited. I got tired waiting there, so I went to the window. The window faced south, and there was Broadway, a dark ribbon between the yellow streetlights. I looked down six stories to the parking lot. A long drop, but I had recently dropped a lot longer. The window didn't open, of course. I'd have to break the glass. And then the concrete below would break
me.
I guessed I could make a rope out of the bedsheets, but that would probably get me to only the fourth floor.

The door behind me opened and Bulldog-Face Man was standing there holding a bundle of clothes. He tossed them on the bed and stepped outside again without saying a word.

They were identical to his getup: white tube sox, white soft-soled shoes, white pants with a drawstring, a white short-sleeve shirt.

I dressed quickly and knocked softly on the door. He opened it, avoiding eye contact.

“Left down the hall, elevators on your right,” he murmured. “Unit 214. You got ten minutes.”

I started down the hall and he called softly, “
Other
left.”

So I turned back and hurried the opposite way. Behind some of the locked doors came sounds: moans, screeches, strange whoops; and behind other doors just silence. Maybe those rooms were empty, but I doubted it, and somehow the silence was more disturbing than the muffled screams.

I took the elevator to the second floor. The hallway here was a lot more crowded than my floor, which had all the ambience of a haunted house. Nurses and orderlies were everywhere, and doctors with stethoscopes around their necks and white lab coats billowing around them as they hurried to the next life-threatening emergency. Nobody paid any attention to me. In a hospital, just like anywhere else, I guess, you see what you expect to see. I was just another orderly hurrying along like all the other, real orderlies.

I stepped into Samuel's room and eased the door shut behind me. There wasn't much light and I stood with my back against the door for a few seconds, waiting for my eyes to adjust. I heard the hiss of an oxygen feed and the soft, steady
beep-beep
of a heart monitor. To my right was a row of cabinets. To the left were the bed and the screens showing Samuel's heart rate, temperature, and blood pressure.

He looked very pale except for his eyelids, which were black as charcoal. If it weren't for the squiggly lines on the monitor and the beeps, I might have thought I was too late.

“Samuel?” I whispered. “Samuel, it's me, Alfred.”

He was muttering something under his breath, the word a barely audible hiss. I leaned closer and thought I heard him say “Sofia.” Sofia? Who was Sofia?

“It's okay,” I said, patting his shoulder through the covers. “I'm getting you out of here.”

“Sofia!”

“No,” I said. “Alfred.” Maybe Sofia was the name of his nurse.

I pulled open the drawers to the cabinet on the opposite wall until I found one containing an open box of scalpels, each one individually wrapped in paper. I tore off the paper, exposing the blade.

A gift then
—
not a treasure.

I went back to his side.

“I met your replacement,” I told him. I laid the scalpel on the pillow beside his head and pulled back the covers. Practically his entire upper body was encased in white gauze.

“He's a little creepy, like you, only a different kind of creepy. More supersuave creepy than undertakerlike creepy.”

I slowly peeled back the bandages. I didn't look at the wound. I looked at his homely, hound-dog face, the sunken cheeks, the prominent jaw, the deep lines across his forehead.

“He says OIPEP wasn't responsible. I don't know. It sure seems OIPEPish to me, but I wasn't an operative like you, so I don't know everything they're capable of.”

I picked up the scalpel and held it for a long time, the diamond-edged blade hovering an inch above my left palm, already laced with scars. I had saved him once from the grip of demons in Chicago. And before that I had cut myself open to heal Agent Ashley in the Smokies. But having done it before didn't make it any easier now: it takes a special act of willpower to slice yourself open.

“The main thing is,” I whispered, as much to me as to him. “The main thing is I'm in a real jam now and it's either the rest of my life in a funny farm or in a prison, and I don't like those choices. I've got to find a third way and you've got to help me find it.”

I ran the blade along my palm and blood welled around the shiny metal.

“In the name of the Archangel Michael ... the Prince of Light ...”

I lowered my bleeding hand toward his stomach.

“... in the name of Michael, who fell with me through fire ...”

His hand shot upward and grabbed my wrist before I could touch him.

He spoke without opening his eyes.

“No . . .”

Then his eyes came open. The muscles of his neck bulged as he forced out the words.

“Not your will. Not ...
your
... will!”

I tried to force my hand to his belly, but he was very strong. It was like some bizarre version of arm wrestling.

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “I can heal you.”

“No,” he gasped. “It is not ... ”

He took a deep breath and I could hear something rattling in his chest.

“Well, it wasn't for that phony deliveryman to decide either,” I snapped back. “Now stop being stupid and let me get this over with ...”

His head came off the pillow and he spat out with such intensity I jerked backward, “Not your choice! Not my choice!”

I tried to pry his long fingers away from my wrist, but weak as he was he was still too strong for me. His head fell back onto the pillow and he closed his eyes, pulling hard for air.

“I will not let you, Alfred,” he whispered.

“Maybe it isn't my decision, you ever think of that?” I asked. “Maybe all this happened so I could be here to save you. I didn't ask for this, you know that.”

I yanked my hand away and held my clinched fist against my chest. The blood seeped between my fingers, staining the white shirt red.

“What's it for, anyway, if I can't use it?” I demanded, but he didn't answer. I wondered if he had passed out. “Huh? Why did this happen to me if I'm not supposed to save people with it?”

Someone stepped into the room. Maybe they heard me in the hallway; I was talking pretty loud. It was an orderly, who grabbed me by the shoulders and turned me away from Sam's bed.

“You're not supposed to be in here.”

“You don't get it,” I said, ripping away from his grasp and stumbling back toward Samuel's bed. “I can save him. I can save everyone.”

The orderly grabbed me again and pulled me toward the open door and into the hallway. Droplets of my blood fell to the floor, like I was marking a trail back to Sam. I kept shouting at the orderly to let me go, that I could save him; I could save them all. I had saved them before, saved the whole world—twice—and I could empty out this hospital, every hospital and hospice and cancer ward, and no one would ever need to be sick or hurt again.

“What else is it for?” I hollered as he gave up trying to reason with me and forced me facefirst toward the floor. “What is it for?”

A hand pushed my head straight down, and I turned my broken nose to one side and pressed my right cheek against the cold white tile. My throbbing left hand was inches from my nose and I could see my blood, shining in the light.

12:08:38:02

It took four guys to drag me back to my room. They tied me down to the bed with canvas straps while I screamed and cursed and generally flipped out exactly like you would expect a psycho to do. Then they gave me an armful of sedatives to knock me out.

The next morning a psychiatrist came and interviewed me. Or tried to. I refused to answer any of her questions unless they untied me. She gave up after an hour. An aide came in with a tray and I thought they would untie me so I could eat. Instead, she tried to feed me like I was a baby. I refused. She left. I yelled for her to come back and untie me. “You forgot to untie me!” I yelled. She didn't come back.

The hours spun out. I don't know what time it was when Mr. Needlemier came in, but the sun had set and the room was dark. He turned on a light and sat by the bed and looked at me with a sad expression, or as sad an expression as his round little baby face could make.

“Here's what I don't understand,” I said. “Some guy blows away Samuel, cuts me up, breaks my nose, wrecks half the downtown, and incinerates five cops, and
I'm
the one roped to a bed.”

He didn't say anything. He sat in the chair with his briefcase in his lap, holding the handle with both pudgy hands like a kid sitting on the bus with his lunch box on the way to school.

“All I did was tell the truth,” I said.

“What is the truth?” Mr. Needlemier asked.

“The thing that's supposed to set you free.”

He cleared his throat and looked away.

“How is Samuel?” I asked.

“Better. They moved him out of ICU. The doctors are optimistic.”

He wouldn't look at me. He was staring at the floor.