“It’s not me,” I went on. “At least, I’m pretty sure it’s not me. I didn’t have homicidal urges before they got into me—at least, not like these. I guess it crosses everybody’s mind and that doesn’t make it right, just normal.”
He nodded. “I have had similar thoughts.”
“About me?”
He nodded again. “Since I woke in the hotel room. I came close to leaving you back there by the roadside. The urge was almost overwhelming.”
“I can still tell which ones are their thoughts and which ones are mine. But the line is getting thinner between them. I’m scared that I’ll reach the point when I can’t tell the difference.”
I pulled the gun from my pocket. He looked at it, and then looked quickly away.
“It would be useless against our enemies, would it not?” he asked.
I nodded. It comforted me in a strange way, holding it. My head hurt and my vision began to cloud. Kill him. He betrayed thee and lied to thee. Kill him!
I rolled down the window and wind whipped into the confines of the little cockpit. He wasn’t looking at me. His whole body tensed, waiting.
I threw the gun out the open window.
For the rest of the drive, I spoke only to tell him to go faster, because without realizing it, I think, he would slowly back off the gas, and I would say, “Faster, faster.”
There was fire in Louisville and Frankfort; we could see the fuzzy orange glow of it burning through the fog. I had lost all sense of time. When we were about a hundred miles north of Knoxville, I dialed Needlemier’s number on Op Nine’s cell phone.
“Hello, Alfred.” The line was staticky, but I could hear the tremble in his voice behind the pop and crackle. “Everything’s been arranged.”
“About an hour,” I said. “Meet us at the airport.”
On impulse, I hit the speed dial for headquarters. I didn’t get a recording. I didn’t get anything. The line just went dead without ringing.
The fog was so thick on Alcoa Highway that Op Nine missed the airport entrance, and we had to pull a U-ie to get back. A silver Lexus was the only car in the parking lot. I wondered what Mr. Needlemier thought when he saw us stumbling toward him, two broken-down, slumping shapes, leaning on each other as they emerged from the fog.
“Alfred . . .” He took a step forward. “Dear Lord, what has happened?”
“Practically everything,” I said. “Mr. Needlemier, this is—”
And Op Nine said, “Samuel.” He looked as startled as I must have looked. “Yes, I remember! My name is Samuel.”
“Great,” I said. “Now you’ll have to kill me.”
“The first order of business is getting the two of you to a doctor,” Mr. Needlemier said.
“No,” I said. “There’s no time.”
He opened the door to the backseat and we slid inside.
“There’s a duffel bag in the CCR,” I told him. He left to fetch it.
“How much farther?” Op Nine asked. His face had gone the milky white color of the fog.
“He’s in the mountains south of here,” I said. “About a thirty-minute drive.”
“You are certain of this?”
“I’m not certain of anything anymore.”
Mr. Needlemier dropped the duffel into the trunk. He came to my side carrying a long thin box.
“You got it,” I said.