Free The Thirteenth Skull by Rick Yancey Page B

murmured.
    I could see Vosch talking to the cop, who had put away his gun, which I interpreted as a sign that he was buying Vosch’s story. Vosch was showing him some papers, probably a phony warrant for my arrest.
    â€œAt least tell me why you guys want to kill me so bad,” I said.
    They laughed.
    Vosch walked back to the car and got in beside the driver. We roared straight back a few yards, spun around and then proceeded the wrong way to the next exit. I could see cars jamming all three lanes; the interstate was backed up for miles.
    We exited onto Kingston Pike and headed east, toward downtown. I waited for the killing blow. It was the perfect time: I was handcuffed and helpless, trapped behind dark-tinted glass. They had been trying awfully hard to kill me and this was the perfect opportunity.
    The blow didn’t come. As we waited at an intersection for the light to change, I said, “Something’s happened. Where are you taking me?”
    Nobody answered. Vosch hit the speed dial on his cell phone. After a few seconds, he said, “He is acquired. Alive, oui . We will be there in ten minutes.” He had lost his Southern accent. Now he sounded French. He closed the phone and slipped it into his breast pocket.
    â€œWhatever you guys want—whatever it is you’re after—I don’t have it,” I blurted out. “I don’t have anything!”
    â€œBe quiet,” Vosch said.
    â€œJust promise me you won’t hurt anyone. Take me, but don’t kill anybody else because of me, okay?”
    The guy beside me leaned forward and whispered something to Vosch in French. Vosch nodded, whispered something back. The guy beside me pulled a truncheon from his coat pocket and slammed it against my head.

05:04:10:51
    I woke to the sound of a train rumbling nearby. For a few precious seconds, before the memory of what happened in the car came crowding back, I was ten years old again, lying in my bed in Ohio. My mom was in the next room watching TV, and I was drifting off to sleep, listening to the trains pass on the tracks about a half mile from our house. I’ll never say I had a perfect childhood, but there were moments in it that were perfect, and that was one of them.
    I heard chairs scraping across a wooden floor. Whispers. A stifled laugh.
    Then someone said, “He’s awake.”
    Someone else said, “Open your eyes, Alfred Kropp.”
    I did, but only because I knew I’d have to eventually.
    Propped up in a straight-backed wooden chair with my hands still cuffed behind my back, I was sitting in the middle of a huge room, the ceiling at least two stories above my head, the walls lost in murky shadow. Detecting the distinct odor of coffee, I wondered if they had taken me to the old JFG warehouse at the edge of the Old City.
    â€œBehold, the last in the line of Lancelot!”
    The speaker was leaning against the edge of a table a couple of feet in front of me. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Slender. I’d never seen him before, but his face looked vaguely familiar. Like Vosch and his buddies, he spoke with a faint French accent.
    â€œIt seems fitting somehow,” he went on. “That you would meet your fate dressed like an old woman!”
    â€œThat wasn’t my idea,” I gasped. I had a horrible headache from the knock in the car.
    â€œI am not surprised,” he said. “That would be like drawing water from a dry well.”
    I wasn’t sure what he meant by that but figured he was calling me stupid. I squinted up at his face, at the aristocratic nose and sharp chin. Why did he look so familiar? I dropped my bucket into the well, trying to figure it out.
    â€œIf you have any lingering hopes of rescue, I would suggest you abandon them now,” he said. “We’ve taken extraordinary measures to ensure you were not followed.”
    We. The shadow of a man hovered near one of the tall, narrow windows. Vosch? Where were the driver