“Mr. Mogart.”
“Are you watching television?”
“Excuse me?”
“Is there a television in your room? If so, I suggest you turn it to channel one.”
“Right now?”
“Immediately.”
“I’m gonna have to put the phone down.”
“That’s quite all right.”
I set the phone down and turned on the TV. The BBC news had just started. About five minutes into the show, they ran a story about the American attorney general’s news conference that afternoon. He was announcing an update to the FBI’s most wanted list. Before they flashed the photograph on the screen, I knew what I would see.
It was my picture.
The attorney general was saying I was an international fugitive with ties to terrorists and was responsible for the deaths of sixteen British and American personnel in an attempt to destroy one of England’s most famous national treasures. Then he announced the Justice Department was offering a six-million-dollar reward for information leading to my capture and conviction.
The big-headed loser was finally tops in something: I was the most-wanted fugitive in the entire world, but all I could think of was how difficult it would be now to assemble my summit of world leaders and declare the founding of the Kingdom of Kropptopia.
I turned the set off and went back to the phone.
“I’m back,” I said.
“Congratulations, Mr. Kropp. You are a celebrity. Perhaps you will even make the cover of People magazine.”
“How—how did you find me, Mr. Mogart?”
I walked over to the window as I talked. I pulled back the curtain, expecting to see a SWAT team or their British counterparts storming the building. But all I could see was the empty parking lot and some woods. To my left, the dirty yellow lights of London glowed on the horizon.
“A fifteen-year-old boy—and not a particularly clever boy at that—alone in a strange country, afraid and without friends, driving a car equipped with a Global Positioning System—how difficult do you think that really is?”
“I guess not too difficult,” I said.
I sat back down on the bed.
“I know what you want, Mr. Mogart. But, see, if I give it to you it’s going to mean the end of the world. I’m only fifteen, like you said, and it’s really important to me that the world sticks around for a while, at least until I’m forty. Maybe fifty, even.”
“Ah, but you are missing the point, Alfred,” Mogart said. It was the first time he had called me by my first name. “Whether you live to fifty is of little importance to me. I want only one thing, so you see we are both equally disadvantaged. You have something I want and I have something you want.”
“What?” I asked, since I couldn’t think of a single thing I had left that mattered. Everybody who mattered to me was dead. But that wasn’t true and the funny thing was that, of the two of us, Mogart was the only one who knew it.
“Kropp.”
It took a second for it to sink in that the voice on the other end wasn’t Mogart’s. It wasn’t even a man’s voice.
“Kropp,” she whispered again.
“Natalia?”
I heard a little screech, then silence, and Mogart’s voice came back.
“Understand, Mr. Kropp, that I care not for what I have, as you care not for what you have. I would sacrifice my life for what you possess, as you would sacrifice yours for what I possess. To my mind, there is only one way to satiate our particular desires. Are you following me, Mr. Kropp?”
“Wouldn’t it have been easier just to come here and take it from me?” My voice was shaking badly.
“Why should I come there for it, Mr. Kropp, when you are bringing it to me?”
Just then I heard a sharp rap on the door. I jumped and gave a little yelp.
Mogart said, “Someone is at your door. Open it.”
“I have a gun,” I said. “I’ll use it.”
“Do so and she dies.”
The rapping on the door continued.
“Who’s at my door?” I asked.
“Answer it and find out. I’ll wait.”
I walked to the door and called out, “Who is it?”
“Your escort, Mr. Kropp,” came a voice from the other side. I unlocked the door and shuffled backwards, lifting the gun, so when he walked into the room it was pointed right at his nose.
“Don’t even think about going toward that bed,” I told him.
He nodded. He was a big man, about my size. He wore a long gray cape over his shoulders, fastened by a dragon-shaped pin just below his Adam’s apple. Under the cape, he was dressed in an expensive tailored suit. His long hair was greased and combed back from his face.
“Stand right there,” I added, backing toward the bed, keeping the gun on him. He nodded again. “Don’t make any sudden moves!” I said sharply to him. He nodded a third time. I picked up the receiver with my left hand and brought it to my ear.
“Mr. Kropp,” Mogart said softly. “I believe I told you some time ago that the will of most men is weak. Thus nations crumble and decay, great enterprises are lost, needless suffering and humiliation ensue. I believe I also told you—in fact, demonstrated to you in the most graphic way—what would happen if your will opposed mine. You will accompany my associate to our little meeting or the girl will die.”
My knees completely gave out then and I sat on the bed. The gun dropped to my side. I had made a vow and if I kept that vow, Natalia would die. I felt so miserable at that point, I almost picked up the Sword and handed it to the escort, who was still standing by the door, smiling at me.
Mogart’s voice lost all its playfulness and it got hard.
“Listen carefully, Kropp. You are not adept at what you’re attempting to do. You are a boy playing a man’s game. You might be enjoying this make-believe game of being a hero, but truly you are fortunate that I found you first.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I screamed into the phone. “I never wanted to be a hero! I never wanted any of this!”
“They are coming, Mr. Kropp. Remember the report you just saw on television? The OIPEPs are coming for you and they will find you. And when they find you, they will take the Sword and I will kill the girl. You will have lost both. You have no choice now but to bring it to me.”
“But if I bring it to you, you’ll kill her anyway.”
“You wound my feelings, Mr. Kropp.”