We climbed the circular stairs two flights to the top, turned a corner, and suddenly we were in the open air. It was colder outside than I would have guessed, but I think I read somewhere that the desert gets cold at night. The Pandora had anchored about two hundred yards from shore. I could see lights there. Marsa Alam.
A group of agents was waiting on deck. I counted ten besides Op Nine and Abby, so that made me number thirteen, which seemed appropriate and ominous at the same time.
When they saw us come up, the agents turned and stared at me.
“I’m Alfred Kropp,” I said.
“They know who you are,” Op Nine said.
I was about eight thousand miles from home, but some things you never leave behind, no matter how far you go, and right then, I felt like the big awkward dateless dork at the prom.
It was a young group, except for Op Nine. Nobody looked over the age of thirty. The guys were all thick-necked and square-jawed, and their biceps bulged out the arms of their jumpsuits. There were two female agents, both blondes like Abby. They looked like fashion models with their oversized lips and very small chins and boyish hips.
Then I saw Ashley. She gave me a little smile. Op Nine cleared his throat, Ashley looked away, and then Abigail Smith began to speak.
“Well, we’ve come to it, folks. I don’t think I need to remind you of the consequences should the Hyena succeed in opening the Lesser Seal—the greatest intrusion event in a hundred generations. For this reason, the director has invoked the First Protocol.”
She paused to let that particular bit of news sink in with everyone—everyone except me, because I had no idea what she was talking about. The atmosphere got very somber.
“You understand what this means. You no longer exist— in the operational sense, of course.” She took a deep breath. “You still have time to back out.”
Nobody said anything. Abby nodded; I guess she was pleased that nobody was backing out. She asked if anyone had any questions. I had about a hundred. For example, what were an “intrusion event” and the First Protocol? The other ninety-eight were similar in that they were questions I probably didn’t want answered. But the main question was why was everyone else allowed to back out but I wasn’t?
Rope ladders hung over the railings, and we descended on them to the water below, where two speedboats bobbed gently, scraping against the hull of the Pandora. My butt had hardly touched the seat when we leaped forward and whipped hard to the left toward the lights of Marsa Alam.
The Pandora faded into the darkness, the darkest kind of dark, under a moonless sky, though the stars were very bright, much brighter than they appear in the States.
Two Land Rovers were waiting for us at the dock. Op Nine helped me out of the speedboat and I rode shotgun in the lead vehicle as he drove.
The roads in Marsa Alam were not up to American standards, and I was concentrating on keeping my tongue in the center of my mouth so I didn’t bite it off as we jounced along. We didn’t head for the lights of the town. Those lights stayed on our left and kept fading until the desert night closed around us and the only thing I could see were the twin beams of the headlamps cutting into the darkness.
After about fifteen minutes I saw a red blinking light against the backdrop of stars and other blue and yellow lights twinkling on the ground.
“Oh, great,” I said. “This is just great. Where are we?” But I already knew the answer.
“An airstrip,” Op Nine said.
Several men in black uniforms emerged out of the darkness as we got out of the Rovers. They carried automatic rifles and wore black berets. A man with dark skin, dressed in a very nice silk suit, separated himself from the soldiers and bowed to Op Nine.
“Dr. Smith,” he said. “I am honored to make your acquaintance.”
“I am Dr. Smith,” Abigail said, smiling her brilliant smile and extending her hand. The man looked at her, startled. He wasn’t expecting Dr. Smith to be a woman, I guess. He cleared his throat and made a show of pulling a sheet of paper from his coat pocket.
“I have a communication from His Excellency, the President of Egypt,” the man said. He cleared his throat again and read very slowly, like he was translating Egyptian into English as he read, which maybe he was.
“ ‘As signatory to the OIPEP Charter, dated Copenhagen, 19 November, 1932, the Egyptian government pledges its full cooperation and support in this most urgent operation. Therefore, as President of Egypt and duly authorized signatory agent of the aforesaid Charter, I grant designated operatives of the Office of Interdimensional Paradoxes and Extraordinary Phenomenon, as determined by the director of said office, unconditional clearance in our airspace and any and all logistical support they may need for the successful completion of the aforesaid operation.
“ ‘We cheerfully place the fate of the world and its future generations into your hands. God be with you.’ ”
He cleared his throat a third time, carefully folded the communication, and handed it to Abby.
“Thank you, Ambassador,” she said. “On behalf of the Office, I extend our gratitude and pledge our undying friendship to your government and all signatories to the Charter.”
She bowed to him, he bowed to her, and then they bowed in unison.
He looked at each agent in turn, until he got to me, and the look became a stare.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m Alfred Kropp.”
“I know who you are,” he said, and then he turned on his heel and strode toward a black Lincoln Town Car parked near the Land Rovers.
Op Nine said something to the soldiers in Arabic, which sounded very fluent to me, and at one point one of the soldiers laughed and clapped him on the shoulder like he’d gotten off a good joke. I tried to imagine Op Nine joking in any language, and couldn’t. Over his shoulder I could see the dark hulk of a big plane. It looked like the same kind of cargo plane that had carried Bennacio and me over the Atlantic on my first globetrotting secret mission last spring.
We walked toward the plane, the soldiers taking parameter positions around us. Op Nine led the way. I glanced to my right and saw Ashley walking beside me. Her hair was pulled into a knot on the back of her head, the same way Abby Smith wore her hair. Maybe it was a Company requirement, like a dress code. Three Egyptian soldiers kept pace about a dozen yards behind us.
“What’s an intrusion event?” I whispered to Ashley.
She shook her head. “You don’t want to know.”
For the first time I noticed how different her voice sounded from when I first met her. I guess that was part of her transfer-student act. Her real voice was deeper and kind of raspy, the kind of voice you associate with smokers or female PE teachers. But I didn’t think she was either one of those. I hadn’t noticed the smell of smoke on her, and I doubted OIPEP recruited high school PE teachers as top-secret operatives.
I nodded toward Op Nine at the head of the pack.
“He kind of creeps me out. I was wondering if he was a cyborg.”
She gave a little laugh. “A what?”
“You know, some kind of cybernetic robot or something.”
“He’s human, as far as I know.”
“Well, he doesn’t act like any human I’ve ever known.”
“He’s sort of a living legend in the Company.” She lowered her voice, which made it sound even throatier. “He was in Abkhazia in eighty-three. The only one to come out alive.”
We had reached the plane, which had no windows, and that was fine with me. Benches lined either side of the massive interior. We took our seats as the engines revved to life and I searched in vain for the seat belts. Ashley sat on my left and Op Nine on my right. Directly across from me sat Abigail Smith, who in the dim cabin lighting seemed to be smiling, but she might have just been gritting her teeth. Between us sat a half-dozen wooden crates bolted to the floor with heavy chains.
The plane began to accelerate, pressing me sideways into Ashley’s shoulder. My stomach rolled, but things got a little better once we were airborne. Beside me, Op Nine reached under his seat and took out an oversized leather-bound book with funny triangular-shaped designs on the cover. Written in big letters the color of blood were the words “ARS GOETIA.”
“What is that?” I asked him.
He cocked an eyebrow at me. “The Ars Goetia,” he answered. “What’s that mean?”
“It is Latin for ‘The Howling Art.’ ”
Then he proceeded to ignore me, burying his nose in the musty, parchmentlike papers of the old book, his lips moving as he read. I tried to think of something to say to Ashley, but I couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t sound boring or stupid. Of course, I usually didn’t let those considerations bother me, otherwise I’d never say anything.
“Do you know what’s in the Lesser Seal?” I asked her.
She nodded, and her eyes were wide and wet-looking, and I wondered if that meant she was as scared as I was.
“Well,” I said. “What is it?”
“The worst thing,” she whispered. “The worst thing in the world.”
At that moment Op Nine abruptly slammed the big book shut and stood up.
“We’re at T-minus fourteen-thirty,” he announced. “Insertion is approximately one hundred kilometers from the nexus. We will approach on sand-foils, since no doubt the Hyena is expecting an aerial assault. SATCON INTEL has identified Bedouin tribesmen recruited by our target.”
“How many?” one of the guy agents asked. He had a great tan. I wondered if he was one of the people posing as a tourist above deck on the Pandora.
“Upwards of fifty, perhaps more, stationed as recons along approachable routes. Including, presumably, our route.”
Op Nine opened one of the overhead compartments and pulled out something that looked like a cross between an elephant gun and a rocket launcher. It had a black strap for hanging it over your shoulder and a telescopic sight.
“Now,” he said. “In the case of a full-blown intrusion event, this is the CW3XD.” He held it high over his head so everybody could get a good look. “Obviously, it has never been field-tested.”
“No time like the present,” the tanned agent muttered.
Op Nine ignored him. “The magazine holds fifty rounds of ordnance.” He pulled an oversized clip of bullets from the same overhead compartment. He ejected one of the bullets and held it up. It looked like an ordinary rifle round, except the tip was larger, about the size of an olive. “Be extraordinarily cautious with these. Loss of one into unfriendly hands could result in complete MISSFAIL.”
“Mission failure,” Ashley translated for me, but I had already figured that one out.
“The CW3XD is designed solely for containment of intrusion agents,” Op Nine said, his tone becoming stern. “Under no circumstances is it to be discharged at the Hyena and his forces.”
“Why?” another agent demanded. He was the biggest one of the lot; his thighs bulged in the shiny OIPEP jumpsuit and his biceps were about the size of my head, which, like too many people have pointed out, was large. “One round from this bad boy and they’ll never find all the pieces.”
“The ordnance is limited,” Op Nine said.
“Extremely limited,” Abigail Smith added, and for some reason she looked across the aisle at me.
“And it is specifically designed for operation against an intrusion agent,” Op Nine said.
“So it’ll kill ’em?” the big agent asked.
Op Nine gave him a cold stare. “What has never lived cannot be killed. Theoretically, the CW3XD will inhibit the IAs, giving us time to retrieve the Seals from the target.”
Op Nine nodded to Abigail, who took a deep breath and rose from her seat with an air of weariness, like she could actually feel the fate of the world resting on her shoulders.
“Let’s gear up,” she said, and I thought her voice shook a little, and that wasn’t encouraging, a senior OIPEP agent, afraid.