The Seal of Solomon

“Then we have approximately six hours,” Op Nine said.

“Six hours to do what?”

“Stop the Hyena before he can unlock the Lesser Seal.”

“ ‘Hyena’?”

“Mike Arnold.”

“That’s his code name, Hyena?”

“You don’t like it? We thought it most apropos.”

“It’s okay, but my big problem with code names is why use one when everybody knows the real name?”

“Because that would offend our super-secret-agent Tom Clancy sensibilities.”

He motioned toward the foot of the bed.

“Perhaps you would like to dress before we reach Marsa Alam.”

“Huh?” I had no idea I wasn’t dressed. Then I saw I was wearing a hospital gown. Why had OIPEP stuck me in a hospital gown?

I slid out of bed and grabbed the bundle of clothes. He just stood there, staring at me with those dark eyes. I hoped he didn’t plan to stand there while I got dressed.

“Is there someplace I can maybe wash up and brush my teeth?” Running my tongue over them felt like I was licking carpet, and not the thin, worn kind in the Tuttle house, but something with a thicker pile.

“Of course. Left down the corridor, last door on the right at the terminus of the hall.”

Terminus of the hall. He didn’t have any accent that I could detect, but he talked like English was his second language. Who says “terminus of the hall”?

Op Nine opened the round door for me. I turned left, one hand pressing the clothes against my chest, the other clutching the gown closed behind me as I shuffled down the hall. In case you didn’t know, hospital gowns are open in the back with just a little drawstring to tie them, and therefore my na**d butt was flapping in the breeze. The hall was packed with agents hurrying up and down, and a few stopped and stared as I passed.

I thought I heard a couple of snickers and once the word “pimple,” though it might have been “dimple,” which made sense too.

I reached the terminus of the hall and went through the last door on the right.

I was in a tiny bathroom, maybe two or three times the size of an airplane bathroom. I barely fit in the shower, but it had one of those removable shower heads on a flexible tube with the adjustable sprayers for regular or massaging.

I stayed in that shower for a long time, leaning against the wall as the water pounded on my dimple, wondering what this dizziness was about and if it had something to do with jet lag. I found a sore spot in my left armpit and worried about that—I knew your lymph nodes were in your pits, and my mom had died of cancer. Cancer ran in families, though hers didn’t start in her armpits.

I grabbed a towel from the peg on the wall and dried off, getting a little dizzy when I bent over to do my legs. I wrapped the towel around my middle, took a deep breath, and sat on the toilet.

I hadn’t cried since this whole thing began back in Knoxville, but I finally had a little time on my hands and some privacy to get some quality crying in, so I started to cry.

Half a world away, kids were piling onto the school bus. Was anybody saying, “Hey, whatever happened to that big kid, Kropp?” Were any teachers looking at the empty desk and frowning, or was Horace camping out at the police station waiting for news? Was Kenny lying in his bunk, whispering in the dark, wondering aloud where Alfred Kropp had gone?

And in the afternoons the parks and practice fields would be packed with players, soccer and football teams wallowing in that sweaty camaraderie of jocks. Geeks would be playing the latest version of Doom and IMing each other with tips. The garage bands would be revving up the amps, moms would be sticking the chicken in the oven, and neighborhood streets would echo with the shouts of kids playing in the fallen leaves and soon it will be Thanksgiving . . .

I tried not to think of all those things, but the more I tried, the more I thought. Once, I thought normal life was boring and I hated it. Now I would give everything to go back.

But Thanksgiving made me think of food and food made me think of my teeth, and that brought me back to my senses. The thought of brushing my teeth calmed me down, I guess because it was an everyday activity that had nothing to do with biblical kings and extreme extractions and secret organizations with vaults filled with deadly artifacts that bring catastrophe if you mess with them.

I found a toothbrush still in its packaging and a travel-size tube of Crest in the cabinet mounted next to the mirror. No floss, but you can’t have everything. I brushed until my gums bled and watched my pink spit swirl down the drain.

I dressed in the black OIPEP-issued jumpsuit. The underwear was boxers and I was a tighty-whitey man, but they were clean, so I wasn’t about to complain. I filed the little fact that OIPEP men wear boxers; it might be useful later, but I doubted it. Most little facts aren’t.

I decided not to go back to my cabin. I probably was supposed to, but the crying had freed up something in me, like a lot of good cries will.

I walked back down the corridor to a stairway that wound upward, went up two flights, and stepped onto the deck, into brilliant sunshine. A stiff breeze blew from the stern, whipping my damp hair back from my face. I wondered if the Pandora had a barber on board.

I walked toward the front of the ship. To my left was the open water, but there was a dark line of land in the distance. Sunlight danced off the pointy tips of the waves, so bright, it left glittering spots in my vision. I passed several people in deck chairs or leaning on the railing, men and women dressed like tourists with cameras hanging from their necks and a dab of white sunscreen on their noses. I looked to my right and saw the upper part of the ship, where a sign was painted in big red letters: “Red Sea Adventures.” There were more letters in another language right beside it; Arabic, I guess, with those funny curlicues and fat dots. So that was OIPEP’s cover: we were happy Westerners on a jaunt before hitting the Pyramids.

I reached the front and leaned against the railing. I couldn’t see any other ships. I looked straight down and saw how fast we were going. When Abigail called the Pandora a jetfoil, I wasn’t sure what she meant. Now, leaning over the rail, I knew. The Pandora rode through the water on two huge fins, its underside about six feet above the surface. With this kind of setup, the Pandora could give a world-class speedboat a run for its money.

Op Nine appeared beside me. I was busted. To distract him, I pointed at the dark line on the horizon and asked, “What’s that?”

“Egypt,” Op Nine answered.

“So this is the Mediterranean?”