Agents of the Glass (9 page)

When the van pulled up in front of the Twenty-First Street Mission, the driver, who had remained silent during the trip, looked in the rearview mirror at Andy.

“This is the place, my man. It doesn't look like much from the outside, does it? It ain't exactly the Ritz. They'll have coffee and bagels inside, if you're hungry. Bagels are a little stale, but they're free, you know what I mean?” He turned around and held out an enormous hand. “I'm Billy, by the way. Billy Newcomb. Pleasure.”

Andy gaped as his hand disappeared in Billy's. “Hi, I'm Andy. I guess I'll be seeing you around. Thanks for the ride.” He climbed out of the van and stood on the sidewalk for a moment before turning back to look at Billy. “Hey, I know you. You were a football player, right?”

“Guilty as charged. Seven years with the Browns, two with the Steelers. But I was nobody till I met these folks,” said Billy, getting out of the van. “But I hear you've had quite a couple of weeks yourself.”

Andy touched the remains of the scab on his forehead. “Yeah, I guess it's been a little crazy.”

“Right on time,” said Silas, appearing, it seemed to Andy, from a crack in the sidewalk.

“Man! Where did you come from? Seriously, you have to stop doing that. You're going to give me a heart attack.”

“I was standing here the whole time,” Silas teased. “Wasn't I, Billy? Come on inside. We have a busy day ahead of us. I hope you got a good night's sleep, Andy.”

“It was okay,” said Andy, still recovering from the shock.

Billy moved toward Silas as if to hug him but changed his mind when he saw the look on Silas's face. “Oh, right. Sorry, my man.”

Silas motioned for Andy to follow him. “It's time you learned a little about who you're working for. The others are already here, so we can get started right away. Follow me.” He led Andy and Billy into a small room in the back, where he lifted the cover of a fake thermostat on the wall and punched a code into the keypad hidden inside. As Andy watched in wide-eyed wonder, Silas then tugged firmly on a bookcase, which swung open like a door to reveal a flight of stairs.

“Just like in those spy movies, huh?” said Billy, nudging Andy.

Without another word, they followed Silas down the eighteen stairs to a simply decorated room with a round table with nine chairs around it. There was nothing special about the table or chairs; it's all simple wooden furniture, the kind you can buy anywhere. It took Andy about five seconds, which is faster than most people, to realize that the room itself was round.

Two of the chairs were occupied, one by a stern-looking man of thirty-one in jeans and a well-worn crew-neck sweater, the other by a seventy-six-year-old Japanese gentleman in a hand-tailored three-piece suit. They both nodded greetings at Billy and Silas while eyeing Andy with a mixture of surprise and, in the case of the younger man, suspicion.

“Was it necessary, or wise, to bring him here so soon?” he asked in a posh British accent.

“It was my decision,” Silas responded. “And Mrs. Cardigan has given it her blessing.” He guided Andy to one of the empty chairs and stood behind him. “I understand your concerns, but in no time at all, I am certain, you will share my confidence in Andy. Some introductions are necessary. The distinguished-looking gentleman in the suit is Mr. Nakahara, and this is Martin Gardner.”

Mr. Nakahara bowed his head at Andy. “It's a pleasure to finally meet you, young man.”

Andy smiled back at him, wondering whether he should bow in return and why Mr. Nakahara had said
finally.
His first meeting with Silas, at ModelWorld, had been just a few weeks earlier. Since buying the model of
Indefatigable,
he had barely had a chance to admire its thousands of parts, let alone actually begin construction. “Thanks. I…Um, it's nice to meet you, too,” he said, adding an awkward bow at the end.

“Sorry I'm late, everyone,” said a woman, rushing into the room in a traditional hijab that covered her head and neck but not her face. “Traffic was—Oh, hello there. You must be Andy. My, you really do look—” She stopped mid-sentence and smiled broadly at him. “Hi, I'm Reza Benali.” She shook his hand enthusiastically, then turned to the others. “Mr. Nakahara, it's been too long. You gave us quite a scare in Moscow. Wasn't sure you'd be back on your feet so quickly.”

“There's still a lot of life left in this old body,” he said. “I'm like a fine old automobile—the older I get, the more time I spend in the shop.”

“Well, next time, wait for help before you take on three of them at once. Martin, how are you? You look pale. And you've lost weight. Everything okay?”

“I'm fine. Can we please get started? You have a long way to go to convince me that this isn't a waste of my time.”

“Ah, there's that cheerful, positive attitude I know and love,” said Reza.

“It's not my job to be cheerful. We're dealing with a serious threat, and Silas brings us a
kid.
An
untested
kid.”

“Enough, Martin,” said Mr. Nakahara. “Let us not forget that the threat of whom you speak is also quite young.”

Andy turned to Silas, his eyes pleading for support.

“Sorry about all this, Andy,” said Mr. Nakahara. “Martin, you've made your point. Now let Silas do his job.”

“I agree,” declared the voice of a woman.

Andy spun around in his seat and found himself facing a tiny woman with bones as fine as a sparrow's, standing at the bottom of the stairs. Well into her seventies, she had the face of a much younger woman, with dark, piercing eyes that sparkled when she saw him. In her hands, she carried a canvas tote filled with balls of yarn, a pair of knitting needles sticking out of one the color of rust.

“I didn't think you were coming today,” said Silas. “You should have let me know. I would have—”

She held up a hand to stop him. “Last-minute change of plans. I'm fully capable of finding my way here on my own. Besides, it's time I met our new friend. Hello, Andover. I'm Mrs. Cardigan…like the sweater. I'm so pleased to meet you.”

Andy stood to greet her. “Hi…I, uh…It's nice to meet you.”

“Mrs. Cardigan is our…Well, if it's okay with her, I'll just start the presentation, and we can get better acquainted later.”

“A capital idea. Andover, do you mind if I sit next to you?”

“N-no. That's fine.”

“I think he prefers Andy,” said Reza. “Don't you?”

“Yes, ma'am,” said Andy.

“Andy it is, then,” said Mrs. Cardigan. “Can't say as I blame you. Andover is a little stiff-sounding, a bit like the butler on a PBS series.”

She took her knitting from the tote and quickly counted the rows that she had already done. Andy watched with amazement as her fingers began to fly, wrapping the yarn this way and that—without her so much as glancing at the sock that was rapidly taking shape.

“Great. Let's move on, then,” said Silas. Using a remote control, he turned on the projector mounted above the table. While it warmed up, he inserted a flash drive into a notebook computer, tapped a few keys, and then motioned to Billy to dim the lights. “We have a little slide show for these occasions. Don't worry if you can't remember everything we tell you today. If it's really critical, we'll let you know.”

The first slide appeared on the screen:

Silas began: “If you remember from our very first conversation, I told you that I worked for a group that I called the Agency. Well, it's actually a bit more complex than that. The full name is the Agents of the Glass. The symbol that you see there was first drawn by Brother Lucian more than eight hundred years ago.”

“There are eight Level 3 Agents,” added Mr. Nakahara, “each representing one of our core ideals: Compassion, Intelligence, Integrity, Loyalty, Courage, Dignity, Discipline, and Humility.”

“Today, we have Dignity, Loyalty, and Integrity—we'll leave who's who for later,” said Silas. “Billy and I are Level 2 Agents; we're both in what we call Special Services. You'll be meeting the others soon. Except for Discipline. That spot is unoccupied at the moment; the previous occupant…” He glanced at Mr. Nakahara, who shook his head ever so slightly.

“Perhaps it's best if we leave that for another time, too,” said Martin. “Until any doubts we have about Mr. Llewellyn have been erased.”

“Play nice, Martin,” said Reza.

“How do you get to Level 3?” Andy asked, hurt but trying to ignore Martin's insults.

“Excellent question,” said Reza. “Finding the right person has always been difficult, and in today's world, I'm afraid, it's become nearly impossible. The people you see around this table have been chosen by the other members, based on their words and their deeds—their
character.
We have all known each other a long time, and we trust each other completely—or we're supposed to. That's why Martin is so testy. You see, we were betrayed by one of our members.
That's
the reason the Discipline chair is empty. We're still deciding what to do about it.”

“And in a tradition that goes all the way back to Lucian,” said Silas, “there is always a ninth chair reserved for a very special person, someone who is, in a sense, at the center of the circle, someone who is at the intersection of all eight qualities.” He turned and looked straight at Mrs. Cardigan. “Someone like her.”

Andy sat up a bit straighter in his seat, and Mrs. Cardigan put her hand on his arm to put him at ease. Silas clicked to the second slide, which had the heading
Lucian's Army.

“Here's where the rest of us come in, Andy,” Silas said. “You and me, along with hundreds of others in the city and around the world, are the foot soldiers in the battle against chaos and hatred and greed, all the things that our enemies hold dear. Billy, Melvin at the hobby shop, the woman at the bodega, all the Level 1 and Level 2 Agents—we're all soldiers in Lucian's Army.”