Chapter Twelve
Another sturdy, straight-backed chair was brought to the library, and Carlo was quickly and unceremoniously tied into it. The business with the paralyzing drug was omitted, and Al went straight to the foul-smelling, nausea-inducing "truth brew." Carlo spat out the first mouthful, and I winced as Al put his fingers on the back of the old man's neck and squeezed, with the predictable result: Carlo screamed long and hard, and after he had finished, he drained the liquid from the cup. His response to Al's first question was apparently a lie, for he vomited all over the front of his green plaid flannel shirt. After vomiting, he slumped in the chair, breathing very rapidly, his soiled chin resting on his broad chest.
"Now let us begin again," Al said cheerfully. "What is your name?"
"Carlo Santini, you little bastard," Carlo answered in a rasping voice. "Who the hell are you, and what's that shit you gave me to drink?"
"You were discovered sitting on top of a hill overlooking this estate with the equipment of a sniper in your possession. What were you doing there?"
"I was hunting pheasant, and my eyesight isn't too-"
I certainly had to give my chauffeur-assassin credit for having guts, if no brains; but courage wasn't going to save the day for him. He proceeded to empty his guts, or what was left of them, onto his shirt front. When his stomach was empty, he continued barking in dry heaves before again slumping in his chair, exhausted and pouring sweat. Now he looked completely spent, beaten.
"That's enough!" I shouted at Al as he once again started to reach for the back of Carlo's neck. "For Christ's sake, he's got the idea!"
Al didn't seem much interested in my opinion, for he went ahead and pressed the nerve cluster at the base of Carlo's skull anyway. Carlo screamed and then passed out. Al ordered that more of the dark, greasy liquid be brought to replace what Carlo had voided. When the old man returned to consciousness, he drank it feebly, without resistance.
"What were you doing on the hill, Carlo?" Al asked, resuming his cheerful tone. "Who was your intended target?"
"John Sinclair," Carlo answered in a rasping whisper that was barely audible.
"And what led you to believe you would find John Sinclair here?"
"The dwarf and his friends are here," Carlo said with a rattling sigh and a weak, desultory nod in my direction. "The dwarf has always been the key."
"Indeed?" Al said, glancing in my direction and raising his eyebrows slightly. "From what he has said, I would not have thought so. Mr. Insolers, and you apparently, misjudged his role completely from the beginning. He knew nothing."
"It didn't make any difference. Whoever you are, you misjudged his role too-but you're here. We're all here because of the dwarf."
This turn of conversation did not please the dwarf. The nausea I was suddenly feeling had nothing to do with any brew Black Flame had concocted, and I turned my head away.
"Elaborate," Al said.
"Why? You know what I'm talking about."
Al placed his hand on the back of Carlo's neck. "Indulge me."
"The CIA has always suspected that Sinclair has friends and contacts in high places, people who are both powerful and influential. The problem is that these people would die before they betrayed him, and they're not exactly loose-lipped; that's why Sinclair gave them the gift of his trust in the first place. The thing was that if just one of these people could be identified, then that person's calls and movements could be monitored in the hope that sooner or later the friend would contact John Sinclair, or vice versa, and we might be able to get the tricky bastard in our sights. When this Cornucopia thing went down, it soon became obvious that something had changed; Sinclair was hanging around and leaving signs, almost as if he were inviting people to come after him."
"He was extending the invitation to us," Al said quietly. "It was a challenge."
"He's hunting you?"
"A decision I'm sure he now regrets."
"Who the hell are you? The CIA never told me-"
"Please continue your story," the young man in the Harvard sweatshirt said with an impatient wave of his hand.
"What story? I was hired to kill Sinclair. I figured it was a good bet that the dwarf would take me to him. I was right, for the wrong reasons, probably just the same as you. You've probably already heard everything else there is to know, so why do you want to hear it from me?"
"It's because he's so goddamn afraid of Sinclair," I said, making no effort to keep the bitterness out of my voice. "He wants to understand the thinking that led everyone to follow the village idiot here, because Sinclair is no fool. He may have anticipated what would happen, or at the least realized what was going on. It's a question of who's trapping who. Our fearless leader is beginning to have second thoughts about his own cleverness."
"That's correct, Frederickson," Al said in a flat tone.
"Chant wouldn't sacrifice us," Jan said with feeling. "Not to save his own life, not even to exterminate an unspeakable creature like you."
I watched Al's face as he studied the woman, and it occurred to me that he agreed with her. But he was still afraid. He turned back to Carlo, said, "If you don't want me to hurt you again, continue your story. You mentioned the CIA's suspicion that Sinclair has influential friends."
Carlo shrugged. "Interpol was keeping very close tabs on everyone of note who began showing up in Switzerland after the Cornucopia thing went down. Frederickson fits the profile of someone who might be connected to Sinclair, so when Interpol told the CIA that Frederickson was coming to Zurich to supposedly do something for Neuberger, the agency put me on the case. I was to follow Frederickson to Sinclair, if I could, and then kill him. I managed to latch onto Frederickson as a chauffeur."
"So much for your theory of the insider," I said to Insolers, who had a very peculiar expression of what looked like disbelief on his face as he stared at Carlo.
"You and Mr. Insolers seem to have shared the same notion about Dr. Frederickson," Al said to Carlo. "How interesting."
"If you say so, friend. I don't have the slightest notion about Insolers' notions, and I don't give a shit."
I again glanced at Insolers, who now appeared even more disbelieving. Color was beginning to rise in his cheeks.
Al took a step closer to Carlo. "You must have realized almost at once that Frederickson knew nothing-he had never met Sinclair and had no interest in the man beyond his immediate assignment. Yet you stayed with him. Why?"
"Because I realized something else about Frederickson almost at once, friend: after he got sucked into the whole thing, he was damn well going after Sinclair himself. People were dying, and he was going to take matters into his own hands. Perfect. What I discovered was that people who wouldn't talk to you, Insolers, or me in a million years, namely Sinclair's friends, would talk to him. They confided in Frederickson, trusted his motives, trusted him to do and say the right thing. Following a man Sinclair's friends would talk to was the next best thing to following an actual contact. Actually, even better; a friend or contact would never have led us here. It kind of looks to me like we've all been tracking Frederickson while he tracked Sinclair. So now why don't you tell me who you people are? Maybe we can make a deal. Our interests are the same. Since you seem to want to kill Sinclair as much as I do, I say that puts us on the same side."
Al merely grunted, then turned to Insolers. From the expression, or lack of it, on Al's face, I didn't think he shared Carlo's optimistic enthusiasm for teamwork, and I suspected that did not bode well for Carlo.
"Do you know this man, Mr. Insolers?"
"No," Insolers replied somewhat distantly as he continued to stare intently at Carlo.
"Well, well," Al said, sounding slightly amused. "Under the circumstances, I have no doubt that each of you is telling the truth. That leads us to an interesting question, doesn't it? We have here, not only in the same country but actually in the same room, the CIA's deputy director of operations, and a free-lance assassin hired by the CIA. How is it, Mr.
Insolers, that Carlo could be sent here without your knowledge?"
It was Carlo who answered. "You're asking the wrong man, junior. Like you said, I'm a free-lancer. Insolers was never in the loop on this deal."
Insolers said, "A renegade operation."
Carlo shook his head, winked and smiled at Insolers. "Wrong, big guy. Not a renegade operation."
"Who tasked you?"
"Your boss. I report to the director."
"Bullshit."
Except for his eyes, which remained lifeless, Al seemed almost amused. "Carlo?" he said easily. "I think you've tweaked Mr. Insolers' personal pride to the point where he's calling you a liar. But I know better. After the sickness and pain you've experienced, and will experience again if you appear less than truthful, I believe you are incapable of lying at this point. How do you explain Mr. Insolers' ignorance of your mission?"
"You still don't get it, big guy, do you?" Carlo said to Insolers.
"Get what?" Al asked sharply.
"The agency knows Insolers is Sinclair's man, junior. He's been in Sinclair's pocket ever since the operation run by the character who owned this castle was shut down. You think anybody at Langley believed Insolers' story that he did it all by himself? Give me a break. He and Sinclair worked together, and a bond formed between them. They cut a deal afterward. The CIA smelled that from day one. The decision was made to keep him in place, and even promote him, on the chance that he might eventually lead them to Sinclair."
"Bullshit," Insolers murmured, but his face had gone pale.
Carlo shook his head. "It's the truth, big guy. Sorry to have to be the one to break the bad news to you, but you haven't sneezed or farted for years without the agency knowing about it. Then they finally came to the conclusion that you weren't really Sinclair's friend; he didn't trust you in the same way he trusted others he'd worked with. You'd struck a bargain, and each of you was holding up your end, but that was it. But there was still a possibility that your knowledge of him might prove useful one day, so they kept you around. I guess you're even good at what you do- but you were always sealed out of the loop on any real play that involved trying to get Sinclair. When you assigned yourself to Switzerland after the Cornucopia thing, the director thought you might finally prove useful by leading them to Sinclair. But what do you do? You go to Frederickson. So much for your influence. They wrote you off."
Insolers had proved of no value, I thought with a wave of bitterness. All he had managed to do was set me off like a bird dog on a trail that had finally led us all to this place, probably to die. "You're a fool," I said to Insolers, anger and contempt making my voice crack. "You should have been up front with me from the beginning. If you had, we wouldn't be in this situation."
Insolers frowned and slowly shook his head. His eyes were slightly out of focus, as if he were staring at something far in the past. I could understand his failing to appreciate the irony of the fact that while he was trying to turn me into an unwitting asset and run me, his own employers had been running him, without his knowledge, for years. In one sense, the CIA had been right in keeping him on the payroll, for he had finally betrayed Sinclair, inadvertently, through me.
Finally, Insolers' eyes came back into focus. He looked at Carlo, at me, and then at Al. "I don't believe it," he said in a firm voice.
"Oh, but I do," Al replied, and once again favored us with a giggle. "It's so droll, really. I couldn't be more pleased with the way this is all working out." He looked around the room, an inane grin on his face. His gaze lingered cruelly on Jan, until she finally looked away and began to sob. Then his grin abruptly vanished as he turned to the Black Flame soldier on his right. "Take him out and chop his head off, then all of you return to your posts," he said in English, probably for Carlo's benefit, then repeated the command in Japanese.
Carlo cursed and struggled against his bonds, all to no avail, as two of the Japanese lifted him up in his chair and promptly carried him out of the library.
"That's not necessary," I said to the leader. Despite his deception and attempt to use me, I still had affection for the old man. "He doesn't have the slightest clue as to what this game is really all about. What's the point of killing him?"
"One response might be to tell you that the point is that there is no point. Since he is of no consequence to Sinclair, he has no value to us. Therefore he dies. What do you care? You're all going to die anyway. He simply precedes you."
"Al, you certainly do have a way with words, you silver-tongued devil."
"What happens now?" Garth asked.
Al giggled. "What happens now? We wait, of course."
Jan had stopped crying, and when she spoke, her tone was firm, icy. "He won't come. You're a fool if you think he will. By now, he knows you're here."
"That's precisely why he will come. He knows we're here, and he knows we have you, as well as his old companion-in-arms, Mr. Insolers, as well as these other three men and a woman, who, while strangers, would have helped him if they could. He also knows that if he does not arrive soon, your screaming will begin; we will take you apart piece by piece, one by one, until he does finally choose to favor me with his presence. First, he will contact us and offer to give himself up in exchange for your freedom. Of course, we will accept the terms."
"No. He would know better than to trust you to keep your word; trust goes against everything you believe in. He would know you intend to kill us all anyway."
"Of course he knows this, dear lady. But he will turn himself in to us in any case. He will do it precisely because he knows you must die, and he will choose to die with you. Alas, dear lady, he is not only a man of ferocious honor but a hopeless romantic. He will come to us, and then we will begin John Sinclair's final ceremony. We will wait."
We waited; tied in our chairs, we had little choice. Harper and I exchanged frequent glances of love and longing; in the dim moonlight that filtered in through the windows by the staircase I could see tears glistening in her eyes. She would occasionally try to start up a conversation, but I wasn't much into idle chitchat, because I was busy with another matter that required all my concentration, and the breath control I had to employ didn't lend itself to talking.
I looked around at Veil, and from the intense look of concentration on his face, as well as the occasional ripple of muscle across his chest, in his shoulders and thighs, I could tell that he was preoccupied with the same matter. Garth, not the greatest conversationalist to begin with, had again retreated deep into himself, conserving his energy for what he hoped would be at least one shot at our captors. Finally, Harper and Jan ended up talking with each other, often with long pauses between sentences, desperately trying to use words, and the sounds of their own voices, to distance themselves from the terror they surely felt.
Suddenly, the lights in the library came on, and I quickly relaxed, stopped what I was doing, and concentrated on breathing regularly. Al, flanked by two of his men carrying pitchers of water and trays of sandwiches, strode briskly into the room. I looked at Garth, saw his eyes take on life at the possibility that at least one of his arms would be freed to allow him to eat and drink. I was happy to see that was not going to be the case. The two Black Flame soldiers fed us. We ate and drank sparingly; by now, all of us were stained with our own urine, and we didn't wish to make matters worse.
"I have a message for you, Countess," Al announced cheerfully. "John Sinclair wants you to know that he loves you very much."
"You're a liar!" Jan snapped.
"Well, it's true those weren't his exact words during our telephone conversation, but I'm sure that thought was in his mind. Why else bother to call?"
"No!"
"Yes. He promised to be here shortly after dawn to give himself up in exchange for letting you all go. I told him you would all be released after we had him in custody. He agreed. Of course, as you pointed out, he knows better; he's planning to join you in death, which I really find quite touching. But he has no idea what we have in store for
him. Before you die, Countess, you will see John Sinclair as a thoroughly broken man begging us to kill him. He will be asked to kill you all with his bare hands, and he will do it. Now, why don't you all try to get some rest? Sleep well."
So we waited some more. Clouds had covered the moon, cutting down on the light coming in through the windows. That was just fine with me, because it would further hinder any secret watcher from seeing what it was Veil and I were trying to do.
Garth's low voice rumbled in the night. "Mongo, you awake?"
"Oh, yeah. Keep it down, because we don't know if anyone's listening."
There was a pause, and then Garth spoke in an even lower voice. "I still have the little item Insolers here used on you; it's wrapped around my wrist, outside my shirt cuff. I was hoping to use it to introduce Al to his head, but now I'm thinking I may never get the chance. Maybe if we can hobble our chairs back-to-back, you or Veil can get it off my wrist and we'll see if it can cut rope."
"They'd be sure to hear the chairs scraping on the floor, and I'm not sure it would work anyway. But not to worry. Veil, how are you doing over there?"
"I'm doing," Veil replied in a matching soft whisper, purposely slurring his words slightly so as to make them even harder to hear and understand. "What about you?"
"Ten minutes, maybe less. Are we coordinated?"
"I'm about a half hour behind you. Considering the fact that I'm supposed to be your teacher, and you always hated to practice this, I find your newfound speed and skill rather embarrassing."
"Well, they paid a lot more attention to you."
"Jesus Christ," Garth said in astonishment. "Are you two-?"
"Shhh," Veil and I hissed in unison.
"Right on," Insolers said in a low voice, sounding at once excited and slightly amused. Neither Harper nor Jan spoke, but I could feel their eyes on me.
Garth obediently fell silent-for a few moments. When he spoke again, it was in an appropriate whisper, and he slurred his words as Veil had done. "Mongo, are you guys really. . uh, doing you know what? How?"
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