The Thirteenth Skull (13 page)

“Oh, they'll give you input on that. Up to a point.” The tears were gone, and that made me feel good.

“One thing I was wondering . . . I don't know really how to put it, but once I'm like totally extracted and inserted into this new life, would there be or is there ever a circumstance where I'd see anybody from the, um, don't know what to call it, the ‘old' interface? For example, does the extraction coordinator do checkups or follow-ups or anything along those lines?”

She was smiling. “Are you asking if you'll ever see me again?”

I started to say something and then decided that would be a very bad idea, to even try to talk. So I just nodded.

Her smile went away. “Do you know what's happening back in Knoxville? They're cutting the headstone. Alfred Kropp is dead now, and the only place I can visit him is his grave.”

CAMP ECHO
SOMEWHERE IN THE
CANADIAN ROCKIES

04:23:36:47

We touched down at a private airstrip nestled in a narrow valley between the snow-crowned peaks of the Canadian Rockies. Ashley pulled two parkas from the overhead compartment and tossed one into my lap.

“Doesn't OIPEP have any bases in the Caribbean?” I asked her.

I pulled the hood of the parka over my head as we descended the stairs to the tarmac. About a hundred feet away sat a helicopter, engine throbbing, blades slowly turning. The only building I saw was a one-room log cabin, smoke rising and curling from the chimney before being ripped away by the frigid wind. Two men wearing helmets and OIPEP jumpsuits emerged from the building as we walked toward the helicopter, Nueve and Abby Smith in front, me and Ashley taking up the rear.

The two guys from the cabin conferred with Abby before we piled into the chopper. They sat up front, one riding shotgun beside the pilot. We took our seats behind them and, with no warning at all, the engine roared, we shot straight up and then banked sharply to the left, the face of a mountain coming straight at us. We cleared it with maybe ten feet to spare.

It was a cloudless day. For as far as I could see were row after row of mountains, the snow on their peaks glistening in the bright sunlight. I saw ravines and deep river gorges lost in mountain shadow and once, in the distance, a solitary bird soaring, its dark body sharply outlined against the white backdrop of snow.

Thirty minutes later we descended into a wide cleft between two ranges. I could see a lake below, maybe three and a half football fields' long and two wide, and a cluster of cabins the color of Lincoln Logs, connected by trails to a three-story château on the shores of the lake. The land behind the château was heavily wooded and dropped steeply toward a ravine.

Ashley touched my shoulder. “Company Base Echo!”

The chopper landed and we dove into the cold, hands on our heads to keep the hoods from flying off as we ran to the edge of the helipad. The two guys from the airstrip didn't get out. When we were clear, the helicopter took off and swooped out of the valley, disappearing behind the jagged peaks. Then it got very quiet, so quiet you could hear our breath as it condensed and boiled out of our mouths and noses.

We hiked up a trail toward the château. I don't know what it was, but suddenly I was very tired, the most tired I'd been in a long time, and I wasn't sure I could make it. The trail wound through a dense stand of pine trees, the ground hard and frozen and covered with a thin sheen of ice. I kept slipping. Once I just stopped and leaned against a tree, trying to catch my breath. It felt like my heart was traveling up my esophagus on its way to my mouth.

“We're almost there,” Ashley assured me.

“The Caribbean,” I gasped. “Or some remote island in the South Pacific. Where's
that
Company base?”

“Come on,” she said, smiling. “Lean on me.”

“I'll knock you over.”

“I'm stronger than I look.”

So that's how I made it up the last fifty feet of the trail, my left arm around Ashley's shoulders, until we reached the steps to the front porch and I could use the railing. Abby's fingers raced over the keypad by the front door, a green light flashed twice, and then we were inside, standing in a huge entryway, the ceiling soaring three stories over our heads. A fire roared on the opposite wall of the great room. A long table sat in front of the fireplace, its top crowded with steaming platters and bowls.

“Food,” I said. “Thank God.”

Abby, Ashley, and I sat down to eat, but Nueve said he had pressing business and disappeared up the staircase. Abby and Ashley exchanged a look, and then Abby dropped her napkin into her plate.

“Excuse me for a moment,” she said quietly, and raced up the stairs after Nueve.

I turned to Ashley. “What's going on? I heard them fighting on the plane.”

“They don't like each other,” she said.

“Why?”

“I'm not sure, but the rumor is he wasn't her choice for the new Operative Nine.”

“I read that section,” I said. “It says the director gets to appoint the Op Nine.”

“The board kind of forced Nueve on her.”

“The board?”

She nodded. “It's a lot like a board of directors for a civilian company. The board chose Abby to be the new director after Merryweather was arrested.”

“So what does she have against Nueve?”

“I don't think she trusts him.”

We could hear their voices above us, rising and falling like waves smashing against a seawall, though I couldn't make out the words.

“I agree with Abby,” I said. “There's something kind of slimy about Nueve.”

“Oh, I don't think he's slimy,” Ashley protested. “He just has a tough exterior.”

“Right,” I said. “Like an oyster. And inside: slime.”

“It isn't easy being an Operative Nine,” she said.

“It isn't easy being a lot of things.”

After we finished eating, Ashley led me back outside. I felt stronger after my meal and didn't have to stop or lean on her on our way to one of the one-room cabins. A small plaque was mounted over the keypad by the door: 13 “Oh, good,” I said. “Cabin thirteen.”

“You're superstitious?” Ashley asked as she punched in the code.

“The number keeps cropping up.”

“ ‘Cropping'? Is that some kind of pun?” She was smiling.

“In reference to a skull,” I said.

“What skull?”

“That's what I'd like to know.”

It was a cozy little cabin. There was a fireplace, a couple of rustic rocking chairs, a bed with a small writing table beside it, and a bathroom in the back. I opened a slatted door by the bathroom and saw thirteen identical OIPEP jumpsuits hanging there. There was that number again. I wondered if somebody cosmically connected was trying to tell me something. “What now?” I asked Ashley.

“Try to rest. We're getting started first thing in the morning.”

“No TV?”

She smiled. “The reception here isn't very good.”

“There's always satellite,” I said.

She left. I heard something go
snick
when the door closed. I tried the handle.

I was in lockdown.

04:04:25:31

That night I dreamed I was flying. Maybe it was the eagle I saw the day before, soaring high and alone over the mountains, but I was flying, arms outstretched, a thousand feet high, and below me I could see mountains and rivers, vast plains and open, empty desert. And cities, from sprawling metropolises to mud hut villages, until I soared past a rocky coastline and then I was over the open ocean, heading west toward the setting sun, cut in half by the horizon. I was alone, and for once it felt good to be alone, above a tranquil sea that had no boundary, the sparkling ribbon of reflected light from the dying sun the path that guided me.

I dove down like a seabird going in for the kill, my arms against my sides, and the wind drove my hair straight back away from my face. I wasn't afraid. I felt alone, but in this aloneness there was a sense of complete freedom.

I woke up kind of dissatisfied with the fact that eventually you have to wake up from dreams. Someone was knocking on the cabin door.

“Alfred,” I heard Ashley call. “Alfred, it's time.”

I washed up, pulled a fresh jumpsuit from its wooden hanger, slipped on my hiking boots and parka, and then followed Ashley up the trail to the main cabin.

Breakfast was already laid out, and we ate alone by the crackling fire.

“Where is everybody?” I asked. The place felt deserted and had an almost haunted-house feel to it. I thought it would be crawling with Company operatives, doctors and researchers and the support staff, like cooks and maids and maybe even a bodyguard or two. But the only people I had seen since arriving in Canada were the two guys from the airstrip, Abby, Ashley, and Nueve.

“They're in the conference room upstairs,” Ashley said. I guessed she was talking about Nueve and Abby. “Meeting with the board.”

“The board is here?”

“By video phone.”

“Oh. Why are they meeting with the board?”

Before she could answer, a door slammed upstairs and Abby Smith came rushing down, Nueve hot on her heels.

“I don't care,” Abby was saying. “It wasn't the bargain we made, Nueve.”

“A bargain impossible to keep, Director,” Nueve said. “As the board pointed out to you.”

Abby whirled on him. “This is entirely your doing.”

He had stopped three steps above her, and his back stiffened when she snapped at him.

“I am the Operative Nine. All Items of Special Interest fall under my jurisdiction.”

“He's not an ‘Item,' Nueve. He's a human being.”

Ashley stood up. “What going on?” she called across the room.

They turned and stared at us. I don't think they knew we were there.

“Ah, Alfred,” Abby Smith said with forced pleasantness. “How did you sleep, dear?”

“I had a great dream,” I said. I looked at Nueve, then back at her. “And now I'm kinda sorry I woke up.”

Nueve said to Abby, “Tell him.”

She came over to me and put both hands on my shoulders. “Alfred, I'm afraid there's been a minor modification to the extraction protocol.”

I shrugged her hands away. “Cut the Company double-talk and tell me what's going on. Are you going to extract me or not?”

“The short answer is yes,” Nueve said from the stairs.

“I'll handle this,” Abby snapped at him. She looked up at the ceiling. I looked up too, wondering what was the matter with the ceiling . . . and then I heard it, the low growl of helicopters in the distance.

Nueve fairly bounded toward the front door.

“They're here,” he said. He flung open the door and then flung himself outside, slamming the door shut behind him.

“Who's here?” I asked Abby.

She sighed. “My guess is Dr. Mingus.”

“Mingus?” I asked.

“Mingus!” Ashley gasped.

“And a security detail,” Abby added. “Nueve is quite thorough.”

“Who's Dr. Mingus?” I asked Abby.

“The head of GD,” Ashley answered when Abby hesitated. “Why is
he
here?” she asked her.

“I know what ‘GD' usually stands for,” I said. “But what does it stand for in OIPEP-speak?”

“Nueve ordered it,” Abby said. Her face was very pale. “Before the conference call, obviously. He must have already known the board's decision.” She gave my arm a quick squeeze. “He's here to conduct the standard preextraction evaluation, Alfred. It's part of the protocol and perfectly SOP.”

Ashley choked out a laugh. “SOP—right!” She turned to me. “Alfred, ‘GD' stands for Genetic Development.”

04:03:43:05

Abby led us to a conference room on the second floor. We sat at a long table, Ashley right beside me and Abby Smith across the table with a laptop in front of her. She pressed a button and a screen slowly lowered from the ceiling. She tapped another button and the lights in the room dimmed.

“What's going on?” Ashley demanded. “Alfred has a right to know.”

“A minor shift in the extraction protocol.” Abby hit a key on the laptop and a picture faded in on the big screen. It was an aerial shot of a tropical island on a sunny day. Palm trees, waves breaking on a sparkling white beach, a few buildings with whitewashed walls and straw roofs. It looked like something from a travel-agency poster.

“What is that?” I asked.

“That is Camp Omega-I, an uncharted island in the South Pacific,” Abby answered. “And our most secure base, other than headquarters. Besides the personnel permanently assigned to COI, only myself and the Operative Nine—and now, Ashley, of course—are even aware of its existence.”

“Well,” I said. “It's not the Caribbean, but it's more like it.”

Beside me, Ashley breathed, “Oh, no.”

“Why ‘Oh, no?' ”I asked. When Ashley didn't answer, I said to Abby, “I don't get it. What's this COI have to do with me?”

Abby refused to look at me. She was staring at the picture of the island. “It's your new home, Alfred.”

She hit a button, and the picture changed to a closer shot.

I saw a cabana and some clothes drying on a line. The water was emerald blue.
Paradise,
I thought. And for some reason a shiver went down my spine.

“It looks pretty nice,” I said slowly.

“Alfred, you don't understand,” Ashley said. “They're not going to give you a new identity. There isn't going to be a reinsertion into the civilian interface. They're going to drop you there and keep you there.
Forever
.”

“For now,” Abby said.

“I still don't get it,” I said. “Why are you dropping me on an unchartered island?”

Abby said, “I was informed of the modification just this morning, Alfred. The board's decision is final, I'm afraid. It believes that, given the peculiar circumstances involved here, a standard extraction is out of the question.”