The Final Hour h-4 Read online

  They dragged me up a flight of rattling metal stairs then down the second-tier gallery. The prisoners watched me from inside their cells, watched dead-eyed and silent as I was dragged past.

  When we reached my cell, the barred door slid open. The guards tossed me inside the way you’d toss an old mattress onto a junk heap. I grunted as I landed on the floor. I heard the door slide shut behind me. I lay there and bled.

  Images drifted through my mind. Memories. Faces. My mom and dad. My sister. My friends, Josh the goofy nerd and big Rick the gentle giant and Miler Miles, the runner who would be a CEO someday.

  And Beth. Beth, with her honey hair and her blue eyes and her soft lips that I could almost feel on mine. Beth and me walking together on the path by the river. Not me as I was now, beaten and frightened and wallowing in hopelessness, but the guy I used to be, walking with her hand in hand…

  I remembered the night before my blackout, the night I remembered going to sleep in my own bed. I was excited because earlier that day I had worked up the courage to talk to Beth for the first time and she’d written her phone number on my arm. I remembered how I looked around my room once before I turned the lights off, my eyes passing over the karate trophies on the shelves and the poster from the movie The Lord of the Rings on the wall. I remembered closing my eyes with the soft bed under me and the warm blankets around me. Home. Safe at home.

  When I opened my eyes again, everything I knew and loved had disappeared. The Homelanders were trying to kill me. The police wanted to arrest me for murder. A year of my life seemed to have vanished into thin air. It wasn’t until later that I found out I had taken a drug to wipe out my memory so that the Homelanders couldn’t get the secrets of Waterman’s team out of me.

  Before he died-before the Homelanders killed him-Waterman had given me an antidote to the amnesia drug, another drug to make those memories return. They returned, all right, in sudden attacks, that were sometimes accompanied by spasms of terrible, gripping pain. Those “memory attacks” still overwhelmed me sometimes and I dreaded them. But bit by bit, they were giving me back the life I had lost, the truth about myself. I was grateful for that.

  The memories I was having now, though-now as I lay on the cell floor-these were different. I felt no pain as I saw the faces of the people I loved-or, that is, the only pain I felt was the pain of being unable to reach out and touch them, to hear their voices, to be with them. Because I had been processed back into prison as a fugitive, I had hardly gotten to see anyone before I was locked away. I was in court just long enough to see Beth and my mother crying as they sat on one of the courtroom benches, to see my father just barely holding himself together beside them, my friends raising fists of encouragement while their eyes registered despair.

  Then I was brought here to Abingdon. I was allowed to call my lawyer, but that was it: You had to earn other phone privileges through good behavior. I hadn’t even gotten a visiting day yet so I hadn’t seen any of the people I loved, not really. I felt as if they might as well be on the far side of the moon.

  Remembering, I continued to lie where I was. The blood ran out of my nose and out of a cut on my forehead. It pooled, damp and thick and sticky, around my face. I wanted to get up. I wanted to clean myself off. But I couldn’t muster the strength to move. I just lay there and let the images pass.

  Finally, after a while, I managed to pray a little, in a confused, sort of dreamy way. I didn’t ask God to send angels down from the sky to lift me out of there or anything like that. I knew the world didn’t work that way. I knew God made people free and gave them choices, and I knew that meant they could do bad stuff to one another if they wanted to. Maybe life would be easier if we were all just God-zombies doing what was right automatically. But no one ever said freedom was easy.

  So I just prayed God would keep his hand in my hand. I knew he knew what it was like to have people do unfair things to you and to hurt you for their own reasons. I just prayed he would stand next to my mom and dad and next to Beth and my friends and whisper to them that he remembered what it felt like, that he knew.

  Things come into your head when you pray, I’ve noticed. Helpful things, almost like messages. Right now, for instance, I remembered the Churchill card, the index card Sensei Mike had given me. He’d written some words on the card, words once spoken by the British prime minister Winston Churchill, a speech he’d given during World War II when it seemed the Nazis might destroy his country: “Never give in; never give in-never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force: Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

  Somehow the words made me feel a little better. They made me feel good about not giving Dunbar the lie he wanted to hear. He had the “overwhelming might of the enemy,” that was for sure. He could beat me up as much as he wanted and there wasn’t anything I could do to stop him. But the truth-the truth belonged to me. It was mine, and I hadn’t let him take it from me.

  Lying on the floor in my own blood, I closed my hand. It was funny: I would almost swear I felt another hand in mine.

  I’m not alone, Dunbar, I thought. I’m never alone.

  I found the strength to rise.

  Groaning, I got to my knees. I took hold of the edge of my cot. I pulled myself up and climbed slowly to my feet. I hobbled slowly to the steel sink in the corner and washed my face, watching the blood swirl down the drain. When I raised my eyes to the small square of mirror on the wall, the sight wasn’t pretty. My face was purple and swollen and cut, but at least the bleeding had stopped.

  I went back to my cot and dropped down onto the thin mattress. I stretched out on my back and lay staring up at the white concrete ceiling. The faces of the people I loved and missed rose up before me again and then…

  Then, with a sort of flash, there was something else.

  A dark night. A torrential rain. A flash of lightning.

  I blinked, shaking my head. This was more like a vision than a memory. For one flashing second, that rainy night had seemed real; it had seemed to surround me.

  I breathed deeply, slowly, hoping that would be all there was. I didn’t think I was strong enough to go through a memory attack right now. But then…

  Then there it was again. Another flash. The dark night on every side of me. The rain lanced down at the windows. They were the grated windows of a bus. A prison bus. It was rumbling and shuddering around me.

  I understood what this was. Of course. I had been in prison once before. I had been convicted of murdering my friend Alex Hauser. I’d been convicted of plunging a knife into his chest after we had an argument over Beth. It was a frame-up, a false accusation, all part of Waterman’s plan to get me into the Homelanders, to convince them that I was ready to join their terrorist crew. After my arrest…

  I remembered now. I had been in a local jail for about a week. Then they’d put me on a bus to transfer me somewhere else. Here. They were going to send me here, to Abingdon.

  Reality seemed to flicker on and off. The past-that rainy night, the shuddering bus-seemed to flicker in and out of being around me.

  “Yes,” I whispered to myself. “Yes, I remember now…”

  I started to sit up on the cot.

  But then I doubled over in pain as the full memory attack struck me.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Broadside

  It was so real. It wasn’t like a memory at all. It was just as if I was there, on the bus, in the night, in the storm.

  I was the only passenger on the long gray-green vehicle. The only other people there were the guard and the driver. The guard sat in a cage up front, cradling a shotgun on his lap. The driver was almost out of sight, just the top of his head showing over the big seat before the wheel.

  We were on a small road, a rough road. The bus rocked and bounced as it went over potholes. I was jostled back and forth, my shoulder hitting the window. For some reason, I couldn�
��t brace myself properly. I looked down to find out why. I was wearing an orange prison jumpsuit- and I was in shackles, my hands cuffed, my feet chained. My body was flung from side to side, striking the window grate just as lightning forked through the black sky, illuminating the slashing downpour for one trembling second.

  I noticed something else now too: My heart was beating hard. I was nervous, excited, afraid. Something was about to happen. I didn’t know exactly what it was and I didn’t know exactly when it would begin, but I sensed it would be soon.

  It came to me: Rose had told me the Homelanders were already working to break me out. He said they’d probably act fast before I was too closely guarded, surrounded by security.

  This seemed like a good time. Out on this bleak, empty road. Alone on this bus with only one guard and one driver.

  But even though I was expecting it at any moment, it was a shock when it actually happened.

  Suddenly, the windows exploded with blinding light. I turned and saw headlights glaring at me like a beast’s wild eyes. An engine roared-also like a wild beast. The lights grew larger and larger and the roar grew louder. Something-a tractor, I think-some huge vehicle-was charging at us from the side.

  The next second the bus was struck, a jarring, terrible blow. I heard the driver let out a ragged, guttural scream. The bus gave a stomach-turning heave under me and lifted up onto one side. For an endless moment it hung there, balanced precariously on two of its tires.

  Then all of us-me, the guard, and the driver- shouted as the bus tipped over.

  I was flung, tumbling through the air, my shackles rattling. I smacked down hard against the edge of the seat across from me and fell hard and painfully against the metal grate of the far window.

  Every light went out. I heard glass shattering, a crunch of metal. Beneath the grinding roar of the attacking engine there came another sound: a series of short, sharp pops. The next moment, I smelled something sour and awful filling the bus.

  I heard the guard shout, “Tear gas!”

  It filled the air in seconds, thick and smothering. I gasped for breath, trying to bring my chained hands up to cover my mouth, unable to reach it. I shut my eyes, but it was too late. My eyes burned as if they were in flames. Tears poured down my cheeks. I felt myself fading into unconsciousness as the gas grew thicker.

  Then hands were clutching at me, clutching my arms. There were deep, harsh shouts all around me. A confusion of voices. I was hauled upright.

  The next thing I knew there was air-cold, refreshing night air-flowing over me. I was moving through the downpour-half stumbling in the small steps that were all the shackles would allow-half dragged by the unseen people on either side of me clutching my arms…

  Then the scene was over, gone. It blew away like smoke. These memory attacks were like that. They were like dreams where time and place changed without warning.

  I was in a car now. The shackles were gone. My hands and feet were free, but I could still feel the pressure of the fetters on my wrists as if they’d only just now been broken off me. There were people near me, bodies pressed close on either side. They smelled wet, sweaty, bad, and I smelled bad too. It was uncomfortably steamy and warm in the car and I could sense it was uncomfortably cold and damp outside.

  “We’re here,” said a gruff voice.

  The car had stopped. From the backseat, I leaned forward to peer out through the windshield. Lightning struck and in the flash, I saw a house, a mansion, standing on a little hill. It was a weird, spooky-looking place, an unforgettably bizarre building. It had a tall central tower in the middle with a lower tower on one side and an entryway beneath a pitched roof on the other. It had all kinds of frills and decorations, each a different shade of gray.

  I didn’t know how far we’d come from the bus. I sensed it was a long way. I didn’t know what state I was in anymore. I didn’t know where Waterman and Rose were or any of the other people who had come up with this insane idea to recruit a high school student to infiltrate a terrorist cell. Did they know where I was? Were they even aware that any of this was happening?

  In another flash of lightning, the crazy-looking house appeared again and sank again into darkness. I sensed that this was the crucial place, the crucial moment of the operation. This was the Homelanders’ headquarters.

  I would be welcomed here-or killed-one or the other.

  It was suddenly day, just like that.

  My orange prison jumpsuit was gone and I was dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt. I was standing in a bedroom. The room looked like it had been decorated by some eccentric millionaire, with decorations so fancy they were almost comical. There were heavy purple drapes with gold fringes hanging in elaborate folds around the windows. There was a domed clock ticking away on a mantelpiece that was crowded with other, smaller clocks, all of them ticking away. A fire was burning in a fireplace so large it could’ve housed a family of four. There were elegant antique wooden chairs and tables crowding the floor. And the bed-the bed was an enormous four-poster and was hung with drapes as thick and colorful as the ones on the windows.

  I knew I was inside the bizarre mansion, the house I’d seen last night. I knew I was in a room in one of the towers, probably the tall one in the center. I was about to go to the window to look out, to try to get my bearings. But before I could, the door opened. A man was standing there. He was a young man, about my age, maybe a little older. He was trim and handsome with floppy blond hair falling across his forehead. He had a machine gun cradled in his arms, its strap around one shoulder.

  It was a strange double moment for me, a moment that seemed to exist in two separate times at once. I knew this man and yet I didn’t know him. Here, in this memory, he was a stranger to me. I had never seen him before. But somehow inside my mind was the knowledge that his name was Orton. His name was Orton and he was going to die. Not now, but later, months from now. He was going to be shot right in front of me. He was going to fall dead at my feet.

  “Let’s go,” he said. He made a gesture with his head and with his machine gun. He was strong, sure of himself. I wondered how he would feel, how he would behave, if he knew he only had months to live.

  I followed him out of the room.

  The dream-the vision-the memory, whatever it was- skipped a step. The next thing I knew, Orton was opening another door and showing me into another room. I stepped across the threshold and saw the man named Prince, the leader of the Homelanders.

  Waterman had shown me his pictures, told me his history. A Saudi terrorist who made a habit of blowing up innocent civilians in England, in Israel, and now here. I had the same weird feeling as with Orton, the same strange doubling. I’d never met the man in the flesh before and yet somehow I felt I already had. It was as if I was living back then and now at the same time.

  Prince’s office-assuming that’s what this was- seemed to have been decorated by the same kook who’d decorated my bedroom. There were the same purple and gold drapes hanging everywhere, even in places where there seemed no purpose to them. There was an enormous window on one wall and an enormous mirror with a curved gilt frame on the wall across from it. The mirror reflected the blue sky and the sunny new day, making the whole room bright.

  Beneath the mirror there was another apartment-sized fireplace. There was a gilded writing desk and gilded chairs on a colorful rug. There were quaint little gold and porcelain knickknacks cluttering just about every flat surface in the room.

  But I didn’t have time to look around much. Prince commanded my attention.

  He was standing behind a mahogany desk that was approximately the size of Kansas. Even at a glance I could see he had a powerful, charismatic presence. He was in his thirties, I would guess. About medium height. He had dark skin and straight black hair and a neatly trimmed black goatee. His large brown eyes were bright with a ferocious intelligence. He was dressed all in black-black slacks, black shirt-and I thought nervously: That’s convenient, anyway. It’s always easier to pick out the
bad guys when they dress in black.

  He made an elegant gesture with one hand, pointing me to the gilded chair that sat before his desk. When he spoke, his English was perfect, but his accent was thick and smooth, sort of like syrup.

  “Have a seat, Charlie,” he said.

  Just in case I didn’t get the point, Orton nudged me in the back with his machine gun. I saw a look of annoyance flash across Prince’s face.

  “That’ll be all, Orton,” he said.

  “Been great knowing you,” I added.

  Orton smiled at me in a way that wasn’t really smiling-the way a crocodile smiles at you just before he eats you for dinner. Then he backed out of the room, keeping his eyes on me the whole way. He pulled the door shut hard when he left.

  Prince gestured to the chair again. I sat down.

  “It seems Orton doesn’t like you,” Prince said.

  “Maybe he’s just shy.”

  Prince’s teeth flashed white against his olive skin. “Or maybe he thinks you can’t be trusted.”

  “Why would he think that?” I said, trying to sound calm.

  Prince shrugged. “Frankly, I think he’s a little jealous. Perhaps he senses your potential. He’s been our star pupil up till now.”

  “Oh yeah?” I said. “And now?”

  “That remains to be seen, doesn’t it?”

  “I guess it does.”

  All this meaningless back-and-forth-I guessed it was some kind of test. You know, to find out if I was nervous or hiding something. I tried to sound casual, but I could feel my heart beating rapidly. I mean, it wasn’t like a quiz in school where if you give the wrong answers, you get a bad grade. If Prince had even the slightest suspicion I was a double agent, I was pretty sure he would shoot me dead on the spot. Maybe that’s why he had such a colorful rug: so the bloodstains wouldn’t show.

  Now Prince settled into the high-backed swivel chair behind his Kansas-sized desk. He brought his hands together in front of him, bridging the fingers. He swiveled back and forth a little, studying me. “You know who I am, don’t you, Charlie?”