Dark Chant In A Crimson Key

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