I sat up and pulled the covers to my chin. You don’t really appreciate the meaning of the world “vulnerable” until you’re trapped in a room with a stranger and all you’re wearing is a flimsy hospital gown.
He pulled the chair closer to the bed, a small, ironic smile playing on his full lips. They looked almost too fat for his thin face. He placed the cane’s tip between his immaculately shined black shoes and rested both hands on the gold head.
Then he smiled. He had a great smile. The only person I knew who had a better one was Abigail Smith.
“Alfred Kropp, at last we meet.”
He wasn’t American. I’m no good with accents, but it sounded Spanish.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I am your attending physician, Dr. R. U. Nutts. That is a joke, of course, but I note you are not laughing. You may call me Nueve.”
“Noy-vey?”
“Sí. Nueve.”
I said, “What do you want, Mr. Nueve?” I glanced toward the closed door. I might be able to get to it before he could stop me, bang on it, howl my lungs out, and hope the big orderly bulldog man opened it—but this Nueve got past him somehow, so there were no guarantees he would rush in to save me.
“Please, I shall call you Alfred and you shall call me Nueve. Just Nueve, por favor.”
“Just Nueve,” I echoed. He was resting his chin on his hands, sort of balancing his finely shaped head on the top of the black cane. “I got a D in Spanish last year, but I’m pretty sure nueve means nine.”
He smiled, this time without showing his beautiful teeth.
“You’re the Company’s new Operative Nine, aren’t you?” I asked. “The Superseding Protocol Agent, the one above all the rules.”
“I am here on behalf of Director Smith,” Nueve said. “She sends her apologies that she cannot personally answer your summons. She is en route to headquarters.”
“She’s out of the country?”
He nodded.
“But you’re not. Why?”
He smiled.
“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.”