The Magic Circle, Katherine Neville [parable of the sower read online .TXT] 📗

work. The only weapon left in my diminished arsenal was that Wolfgang didn’t yet suspect that I suspected him, so I’d have to act quickly.

I knew Olivier would be at the office, too, by this time—already ten A.M.—so I thought I could phone Sam’s grandfather, Dark Bear, from home. Though my line might still be bugged, I could at least try to get a message passed to Sam that I was back in town.

As I came up the road, I saw Olivier’s car in the drive and another car parked up on the road not far from the mailboxes, a compact with rental plates. Since the house nearest ours was some way down the road, it was a safe bet Olivier had company—the very last thing I wanted or needed right now. I had pulled into the drive to turn around and try a new plan when Olivier himself popped his head from the rear door with a slightly wild expression, his dark curly hair more disheveled than usual. He hooked his hand toward me, gesturing me to come inside fast. Against my better judgment I switched off the ignition and got out, dragging my coat and shoulder bag. But before I could speak, Olivier came out and took me firmly by the arm.

“Where in God’s name have you been?” he hissed, sounding slightly hysterical. “You haven’t returned a single message of mine in two whole weeks! Have you any idea what’s been going on around here?”

“Not a clue,” I admitted, starting to feel more than frightened. I motioned to the car parked on the road. “Who’s your guest?”

“Your guest, my dear,” Olivier informed me. “She drove in from Salt Lake late last night and stayed upstairs at my place, where there’s heat. I’ve put her down in your flat just a moment ago, with the little argonaut for company.” She? “As we cowpokes say,” Olivier added glumly as he followed me down the steep steps to my apartment, “I’m afraid we’re all up Shit Creek without a paddle, thanks to you.”

When I stepped into the living room of my vast root cellar, more than a surprise was in store. At the far corner table was the new half sister I’d spoken to only two days ago from a phone booth at the Vienna airport, Bettina Brunhilde von Hauser.

Olivier was right: her presence here couldn’t be good news. But I didn’t have to hold my breath. Bambi rose and came across the room. She was wearing another of those amazing jumpsuits, this one a tawny biscotti shade that made her look as if she’d taken a full-body plunge into a caramel vat. Jason trotted by and disdainfully ignored me. I hung my coat and shoulder bag out of reach on the coat rack.

“Fräulein Behn—I mean Ariel,” Bambi began, quickly correcting herself. “Your Onkel sent me here as soon as he understood how urgent the situation had become.”

She glanced at Olivier with those gold-flecked eyes, and he flushed a little pink.

“I guess that’s my cue to make myself scarce,” he said.

“What for?” I asked him, adding, “Don’t you have my apartment bugged as well as my phone? Or why’s your boss kept you here, spying on me all this time?”

“I think you should tell her,” Bambi surprised me by informing Olivier. “Tell her what you told me last night. Then I will explain the rest as well as I can.”

“The group I work for sent me here five years ago, when the Pod first hired you,” Olivier told me. “We weren’t at all certain then which of your family was involved in this complex affair—but we knew plenty about Pastor Dart and his cohorts. We were keeping a very close eye on them. We found it suspicious that Dart would hire you right out of school as a direct report to himself, with so few credentials. Except, of course, the important one: that you were so close with your cousin Sam.”

Worse and worse. So the Pod was every bit the villain that I’d feared, and that his nickname Prince of Darkness had always proclaimed. But I had one big question:

“Did Sam know you were spying on me? Or were you spying on him, too, even though he often worked for your boss, Theron Vane?”

“We’re not spies,” said Olivier. “We’re an international agency along the lines of Interpol, which cooperates across national boundaries in tracking illicit activities—especially the smuggling of space-age weapons. We’ve learned that many of the people engaged in such activities have managed to infiltrate, at very high levels, institutions responsible for controlling them. High on the list are national drug traffickers, and even the KGB and CIA themselves. We fear they may soon be selling “hot products”—including atomic materials—on the open market, just as they’re currently selling off their own undercover agents to the highest bidder!”

That was the longest speech I’d ever heard from Olivier, and the most serious, but he still hadn’t answered my question.

“If you weren’t spying, why was my phone bugged?” I said. “Why were you working undercover? Why did you try to grab the rune manuscript from the post office before I got there?”

“I was sent here to protect you, as soon as we learned what they were after,” Olivier told me. “Though most often, I’ve wound up protecting you from yourself.”

Shades of Herr Wolfgang, I thought.

“Once I saw that rune manuscript through the window of your car, I knew those weren’t the documents your cousin had described to our people. When you stayed to work late at the office, I watched until I saw where you planned to hide it—in the Department of Defense Standard, a marvelous choice! I’ve retrieved it, of course, and made copies, so as not to lose it forever. Bambi says Lafcadio is afraid the other documents, those that belonged to your cousin, have already fallen into her brother’s hands.”

I actually felt relieved that at least one document, the rune manuscript, existed in more than just the hands of my