American Craftsmen Read Online Free PDF Page B

running past. One stopped and shouted at him in Czech. Endicott grabbed his arm. “ Take me to the American Embassy. Now.”
    *   *   *
    Endicott sat huddled in a safe room deep within the U.S. Embassy, still in charred and singed clothes, wrapped in a blanket. Feeling bad and absurd, feeling blistered and burned. The infirmary could wait; first, he had his duty. He cleared his thoughts and phoned the general.
    “Sir, target was terminated. Termination was unavoidable. There’s significant mess for cleanup. Intel is … Intel is very significant, sir.”
    Silence for a ten count. “Sir?”
    “Never mind all that now, Sword. You can report to me in person. You’re needed back home, ASAP.”
    “Sir?”
    “Something is wrong with, um, Casper. We want you to monitor him.”
    Casper. The captain he had helped restrain. Endicott’s sword hand itched at the name, and he didn’t know why. “I saw him at the airbase, sir.”
    “Right. I expect your report on Prague tomorrow.” The general cleared his throat. “You should know that Casper is a Morton.”
    “Understood, sir.” His father must have detected the pause in Endicott’s response and known the emotion it contained. But his response was certain. If his father of all people could give this order, Endicott could damn well obey it.
    Containing his strong feelings completed Endicott’s exhaustion. Duty done for the moment, he let himself be cared for and wheeled onto a plane for Washington. Tomorrow he would just report the facts, but he knew what the general would say. The old Czech had been working with some serious Left-Hand craft, craft at a level that he did not fully comprehend and control, or Endicott would have been toast. Only one Family had ever achieved that dark height. The general would say that the Left-Hand Mortons were back. They were trying to make new bodies for their old corrupted souls.
    And coincidentally, something was wrong with Captain Morton. Only, in spiritual ops, there were no coincidences.
    All this was profoundly disturbing, like a move to DEFCON 2 on a sunny day. But what really stuck in Endicott’s craw (along with the monastery’s splinters) seemed trivial in comparison: why had PRECOG originally assigned the Prague job to a Morton? And why had Sphinx switched this job to an Endicott?
    If all had gone well, a Morton would have been fine in Prague, perhaps even too cozy with the monastery’s Left-Hand abominations. But if all had gone as badly as it had? God had granted the Endicotts the strongest power of command, and it had taken all of Endicott’s compulsive power to get out of the monastery alive. If Casper had not played nice with those Left-Hand elements and had gotten into the same fight, he would have died down there.
    The steady vibration of the plane was a lullaby. Endicott could not answer the riddle yet, not without knowing more, certainly not before sleep took him. But, within the limits of duty, he would answer it. And whatever the answer, someone would have to face divine wrath and Endicott power. So help me, God.

 
    CHAPTER
    THREE
    I was in the desert again, fighting the sorcerer. “ Break hand  … move air  … short sharp shock .” Then, I was running, trying to stop my men: “Cease fire! Cease fire! Goddamnit, cease fire!”
    Kill them all.
    I stopped yelling and blinked my eyes fully awake. Sunlight streamed into the rural bedroom. I felt cold and wet in a pool of my own night-terror sweat. I rolled off the firm mattress of the oak bed onto the thick shag floor and went to the bedroom door. I knocked. “I’m awake,” I said.
    “No shit?” came the answer.
    “Thanks for the sympathy.” But I actually appreciated the attendant’s nonchalance. I showered and dressed in my flannel shirt and new jeans with on-duty precision. That was more than I could say for the dining room staff—shirts untucked, shoes scuffed and muddied, symptoms of low discipline and morale. The staff was tired of this