“Why did you do it, Sam?”
He didn’t need to ask what I was talking about. He knew. “I was the Operative Nine.”
“And putting a bomb in my head was the thing-that-must-be-done?”
“
Yes.”
“Why?”
“The reason was classified.”
“Declassify it. Now.”
He nodded. Swallowed. “I wish I had a drink,” he said softly, as if to himself.
I slid my Big Gulp toward him.
“Not that kind of drink,” he said.
“You’re not the Operative Nine anymore,” I said. “You’re my guardian. You owe me the truth.”
“The price for that is very high, Alfred.”
“Whatever it is, I’ll pay it.”
“It won’t be you who pays.”
“Tell me why you did it, Sam.”
He sighed and his voice now barely rose above a whisper.
“Sofia . . . Alfred. Because of Sofia.”
“Sofia. I’ve heard that name before.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I heard you saying it in your sleep at the hospital,” I reminded him. “ ‘Ghost from the past,’ you told me. Then I overheard Nueve and you arguing about her before we left, and Nueve said you were talking about the goddess of wisdom, but somehow I don’t think you were.”
“Hardly,” he said.
“When Mingus had me in his lab, I saw some vials of my blood labeled ‘sofa.’ And I thought that was really weird.
What did my blood have to do with sofas? It doesn’t have a damn thing to do with sofas, does it, Sam?”
“No.”
“So no more hints and half answers and riddles. Tell me who Sofia is and tell me now.”
He nodded. “Sofia isn’t a person, Alfred. Sofia is a thing. An acronym. Special Operational Force: Immortal Army. SOFIA.”
The room was quiet except for the humming of the heater by the window. Suddenly the room seemed very dark. I got up from the table and turned on the floor lamp by the bed.
“Catchy name,” I said. “Who came up with that?”
“The Operative Nine.” He didn’t turn to watch me this time. He sat very still, his back to me.