The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp (Alfred Kropp 1)

“For hours I lay half dead in the blood-soaked mud of Mogart’s keep,” Bennacio went on. “Finally darkness fell and I deemed it safe to slip away. I was spotted, of course, and pursued here to America, though I thought I had lost my pursuers. Apparently, I have not.”

He set down his cup and put his plate with the uneaten bagel on the bedside table.

“Nor will they stop until I am dead. For I am the last knight, the sole hope for the Sword’s retrieval. These others, the outsiders Samson enlisted to our cause, this . . . OIPEP cannot prevail against Mogart. Only a Knight of the Order has any prayer of retrieving the Sword. And Mogart knows this.”

He rolled to the edge of the bed, holding his side, wincing from the pain.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Leaving.”

“You can’t leave, Bennacio. You lost a lot of blood. You gotta rest for a couple—”

“Listen!” he said sharply. “They will not stop hunting me, Kropp. Even as we speak, they may be in this building. Now that my final oath to Samson is fulfilled, I must return to Europe and pick up Mogart’s trail before the calamity strikes, before he or anyone else can use the Sword to an evil end.”

He pushed himself from the bed, swayed a second on his feet, and fell back. I caught him and eased him back down as he gulped in air.

“I am the last knight,” he gasped. “I am bound by my sacred oath to recover what should never have been lost.”

I don’t know if those words were aimed at me, what should never have been lost, but I took it like they were.

“What can I do?” I asked.

He cocked one of those thick eyebrows in my direction and I felt about the size of pencil lead again.

“Please, Bennacio, let me do something. Let me help. I didn’t realize I was doing it until now, but I’ve run away. I’m not going back to the Tuttles’ ever again. So if I’m not going back, then I’ve got nowhere to go and I can’t go nowhere, I’ve got to go somewhere. All this—it’s my fault. Well, it’s also my uncle’s fault, but if I had said no then none of this would have happened. He couldn’t have done it without me. But he’s dead now, so I’m the only one who can do anything about it, about letting Mogart get his hands on the Sword. I don’t know what I can do, but you’re in pretty rough shape; maybe you could use me. Please. Please, use me, Bennacio.”

He almost smiled. Almost. He held on to his side, wincing. “Can you drive a car, Kropp?”

16

I told him, you bet, I could drive a car, but I had just started and didn’t have much experience. That didn’t seem to bother him. I helped him get dressed and he leaned on me as we walked to the parking lot. He directed me to a brand-new silver Mercedes parked near the exit.

“This is your car?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Cool car.”

I helped him into the passenger seat. After I slid behind the wheel, he handed me the keys.

“This is a really nice car, Bennacio,” I said. “You sure it’s okay if I drive it?”

“Did you not say in the room you could drive?”

“Sure, but I only got my learner’s permit six months ago and I don’t have that much experience behind the wheel.”

He gave a little wave of his hand, a gesture that struck me as very European. “We must use the instruments given us, Kropp.”

“Oh,” I said. “You bet.”

The engine purred to life and I felt my scalp tingle. If things weren’t so serious, I would have been thrilled.

Bennacio directed me to the interstate. I asked him where we were going, thinking I was just giving him a quick lift to the airport, but all he said was “North,” which was the opposite direction of Knoxville’s airport. I didn’t know where we were going, only that somehow I was along for the ride. I kept checking the rearview mirror, but didn’t see anything suspicious, just cars and big semis. What would a suspicious car look like anyway? Since I didn’t know, all the cars around us started to look suspicious. It’s hard enough being a novice driver tooling down the interstate in heavy traffic; try adding covert pursuit by quasi-medieval bad guys to the list.

I was about an hour out of the city when Bennacio asked, “Why did you take the Sword?”

“That was my uncle’s idea,” I said. “Well, I guess it was his idea by way of Mr. Myers’s—I mean Mogart’s idea.”