“If you’re Operative Nine, what happened to the first eight operatives?” I asked.
“The ‘Nine’ doesn’t refer to a sequential number.”
“I’m no math whiz, but I thought nine was a sequential number.”
“It refers to a section of the OIPEP Charter.”
“Lemme guess. Section Nine.”
He nodded. I asked, “So what is Section Nine?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“And if you did . . .”
“I would have to kill you.”
“I think we’re really bonding here. Establishing a rapport. Have you ever had to? Kill somebody, I mean.”
“Only once. In Abkhazia.”
“Abkhazia. Ashley mentioned you were in Abkhazia.
What happened in Abkhazia—or can’t you tell me that either?” “I shouldn’t tell you.”
“It’s classified?”
“It’s painful.”
“Well, maybe you should tell me to get it off your chest. You know, to help with the bonding, since we’re partners now and everything.”
“I do not need it off my chest.”
“ ‘And we’re not partners.’ You were about to say that.”
“I was about to say Abkhazia is something you may want to hear now but would regret hearing afterward.”
“I can take it,” I said. “I’m tougher than I look.”
“Oh, you are many more things than how you appear, Alfred Kropp.”
“You’re talking about the whole Lancelot thing, I guess, and the fact that Bernard Samson is my dad. But the thing with that is it’s not anything I did. I mean, it didn’t require anything special on my part.”
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. His eyelids were the color of charcoal. He must have been one of the homeliest people I had ever seen, with those long flappy earlobes, the droopy cheeks, and raccoon eyes that reminded me so much of a hound dog. But you shouldn’t judge people by appearances—the credo I lived by.
“Padre,” I said softly. Then louder: “Back in the desert, you blessed us with holy water and later on Mike called you ‘Padre’ . . .”
His eyes stayed closed. “I was a priest—once.”
“What happened?”
“My particular theological views made the church uncomfortable.”
“I guess they would,” I said. “I mean, not even the church buys into demons these days, does it?”
He didn’t answer. So I went on. “So that’s the deal with the holy water and all the Latin and praying. I haven’t been to church since my mom died. You think that’s part of it, Op Nine . . . um, Father?”
“Do not call me that, Kropp.”
“Well, what do I call you then?”
“Operative Nine.”
“No. What’s your real name?”
“Whatever it needs to be.”
“If I guessed your real name, would you tell me?”
“No.”
“Adam.”
“You are wasting your time.”
“Arnold.”
“Enough, Kropp.”
“Alexander. Axelrod. Benjamin. Brad. Bruce. What about the first letter—can you give me that?”
He didn’t say anything. I didn’t see what the big deal was about his name. Maybe he was somebody infamous or wanted for some terrible crime, like maybe what happened in Abkhazia had something to do with it, but OIPEP protected him.
“Okay, forget it. I was going to ask if you thought everything that’s happened has something to do with me not going to church since my mom died.”
He opened just his left eye and looked at me with it.
“You know, these world-threatening disasters I keep causing. You think maybe God’s mad at me?”
His left eye slowly closed. He said, “Isn’t it odd, Alfred, how often we attribute the terrible things that happen to us to God, and the wonderful things to our own efforts?”
I thought about it. I wasn’t sure, but I think he was accusing me of being egotistical. Me!
“Do you think I’m a bad person, Op Nine?” I asked.
“I think you are a fifteen-year-old person.”
“What’s that mean?”
“The angels were fully formed in an instant. We human beings take a bit longer.”
“That’s good. And bad too, I guess, from my point of view. One thing is for sure. This whole intrusion event is going to make believers out of a lot of people. I know your plate is kinda full right now, but maybe if you have a couple extra minutes you could say a prayer for my mom?”
“I am not a priest anymore, Kropp.”
“I know, but it couldn’t hurt.”
He didn’t say anything. His eyes were closed, so he might have been saying one or he might have just fallen asleep.
33
Soon I could see an airstrip, the runway a thick black scar in the pristine snow. We stopped at the edge of the tarmac and I hopped out without waiting for our silent driver to open my door. The force of the wind nearly knocked me over, and I wondered how we were going to take off.
Op Nine joined me and I pointed at our ride sitting at the end of the airstrip.
“What the heck is that?”
It didn’t resemble any plane I had ever seen. It looked kind of like a paper airplane, with sleek wings that started near the front and gradually widened as they went back toward the tail fin, which seemed small for a plane about the size of a 747. The fuselage came to a sharp point at the cockpit, as if a giant had taken a normal plane and stretched it, creating an elongated teardrop shape. It looked like a gardening trowel with wings.
“That is a specially modified version of the U.S. Air Force’s X-30 aircraft, the fastest plane on earth,” Op Nine said. “It skims along the very edge of the atmosphere at four thousand miles per hour.”
“Wow,” I said. “I’ve always wanted to do that.”
“Which means we should reach our insertion point in under an hour.”
“Terrific. What’s our insertion point?”
I expected him to name some exotic locale, a place Mike Arnold visited on one of his missions for the Company, like Istanbul or Sri Lanka.
Instead, Op Nine said, “Chicago.”
I didn’t see a pilot or any crew onboard the X-30. We stepped into the main cabin, Op Nine closed and locked the door, and we took our seats. Everything looked brand-new, down to the plush carpeting and the first-class-sized leather seats. We buckled up and Op Nine pressed a button on his armrest. The plane immediately began to accelerate, and I felt my big body being flattened against the backrest. Then I found myself lying at a forty-five-degree angle as we roared upward, bouncing some when we hit the low clouds, but only for a second or two, and then the sun burst through the window beside Op Nine as we lifted over the clouds and kept climbing.