The truth of the matter

CHAPTER TEN

The Sign Fighting off my headache and my stomachache and the weakness in my muscles, I grabbed hold of the side of the chest and pulled myself to my feet. How long had I been out? I looked at my watch. I’d only been unconscious about twenty minutes this time. It wasn’t much, but it was long enough for the Homelanders to have set a bomb and run for it. The explosion could go off any minute, any second, for all I knew. How much time did I have left?

I stared at the wall in front of me-the wall that held the invisible door-that blank, blank wall. The Panic Room struck me as a good name for this place just then because I could feel myself starting to panic.

But then, as my mind continued clearing, something came back to me. What was it? Just before that last seizure- the last “memory attack,” you might call it-I’d had an idea, hadn’t I? An idea had started to take shape in my mind about how I might be able to get out of here-maybe even get out before the killer-Waylon- and the rest of the Homelanders blew the place up.

What was it? What had I been thinking?

I looked around, trying to recapture the half-formed thought. My gaze fell on the chest, the empty chest. Something… Something had been there…

And then I saw the tray. The tray that had had the sandwich on it. I’d taken it off the chest when I’d opened it. I’d set it on the floor… There was something about the tray, something on the tray…

It all came back to me.

A flash of pain went through my forehead as I reached down and picked up the 3 x 5 index card Waterman had left for me with the food and water. I had to shut my eyes a moment until the headache passed. But a moment later, I forced my eyes open. I reread the message written on the card:

Eat. Drink. Build up your strength. You’re going to need it.

And then, at the bottom, that symbol instead of a signature: that simple stick-figure house, a square with an X inside and a triangle for the roof.

Why would Waterman sign the note that way? That was the thought that had come to me just before the memory attack knocked me down. What did the symbol mean? The answer had been coming to me when the seizure hit and drove me to the floor and back into the past.

It occurred to me that he must’ve been trying to tell me something. Why else sign with a symbol instead of his name? And what else could he have been trying to tell me except how to get out of here?

I remembered how I’d watched him passing his hand over the secret doors. I remembered the pattern had been all straight lines and diagonals. Just like the little house- the straight lines of the walls, the diagonals of the roof and the X inside. Waterman must’ve been passing me the code just in case-just in case the Homelanders arrived- just in case he had to escape and couldn’t help me.

That’s why he didn’t explain it. Why he didn’t write it out. He was afraid they might be watching, maybe even afraid they had someone inside his organization. I didn’t know. But since that little house symbol was the only hope I had-the only idea I had-I figured I better try to do something with it-now, before Waylon’s bomb went off.

I moved to the wall again. I was about to put my hand against it, when I hesitated. I pressed my ear against the wall instead. I didn’t want to get out of here only to walk directly into the guns of the Homelanders. I listened. There were no voices out there now, no one talking. The place was empty-or it sounded as if it was empty anyway.

I backed off. I put my palm on the wall, the way I’d seen Waterman do it. I traced the shape of the house. The square base. The X inside. The triangle of the roof.

Nothing. No motor noise. No sliding door.

I licked my dry lips. My heart was sinking. I could almost feel the seconds ticking away. I tried again. Again, nothing. Maybe the door had some kind of secret sensor that read Waterman’s fingerprints or his DNA or something.

But then why leave me the symbol?

I thought back to when I’d seen Waterman make the sign over the door. I could see there was a pattern. It was always the same pattern-the lines and diagonals. But there was something else as well. He had always done it in one smooth, flowing motion, never breaking off, never moving his hand and never retracing any of the motions he’d already made.

There must be a way to draw the little house with the X inside in one motion without lifting my hand from the wall.

I tried it. No, I had to go over one line twice. I tried it again. Then again. I couldn’t make it happen. Every time, I had to retrace one of the lines. And every time I was done, there was no motor. No door.

I stared at the pattern on the card. There had to be a way. Waterman did it. I could do it. He wouldn’t have given me the symbol if it didn’t work. I had to believe that or there was no hope.

I tried again. I traced a diagonal across the wall. Another one. Another. Wait, this time it was working. A straight line, drawing the house. Then-yes!-only one more line. I did it. I finished the whole thing without retracing my steps.

And immediately, there it was. The grinding engine in the wall. The panel slid back in front of me.

The door to the Panic Room was open. I was free.

I stepped out into the main part of the bunker-and the first thing I saw was the bomb.

It was sitting in plain sight, right there on one of the workstations. It was a large cube made of several blocks of some kind of brown putty. Explosives. I’d seen stuff like that on TV. There was a device and wires wrapped around the putty block. There was a timer there with red numbers quickly blinking away.

Six minutes and fifteen seconds left before the bomb exploded; 6:14… 6:13… The numbers clicked swiftly down.

That was the first thing I saw. The next thing I saw was the Homelanders.

A movement caught my eye. I turned toward it. Something was moving on one of the monitors hanging on the wall. It must have been displaying the video readout from a security camera posted in the ruins above.

I could see by the video that the dawn was breaking outside now. There was a clear view on the monitor of some of the broken pillars and ruined buildings standing in the morning mist. I could see the Homelanders moving among them. Searching through them.

They were searching, I knew, for me.

I turned from monitor to monitor. Each one showed a different portion of the scene outside. Each one showed different ruined buildings, different columns and empty arches and patches of fog snaking through them, twining around them. Each monitor also showed one of the Homelanders.

I counted six of them altogether. Each one carried a machine gun. They moved slowly through the ruins, their heads turning this way and that, their eyes scanning the area.

All except one. One stood still. He held his gun with its butt propped on his hip, the barrel pointed to the sky. I recognized the place where he was standing. He was right outside the brick cylinder that protected the entry. He was guarding the only way out of here. He was making sure I didn’t escape.

So down here, the bomb was ticking-six minutes and one second now… 6:00… 5:59… 5:58…

And up there, the Homelanders were patrolling and guarding the way out.

If I stayed in the bunker, I’d be blown up. If I tried to leave, I’d be shot.

I looked at the bomb on the table again. For a moment I wondered if maybe I could just disconnect the wires and defuse it. But somewhere in the bottom of my mind was the absolute certainty that the device was sensitive to the touch. Maybe it was something I knew from my training with the Homelanders. But however I knew it, I felt very sure if I even touched the device, it would go off then and there.

So that was what I saw: first the bomb… then the Homelanders on the monitors patrolling the ruins outside… And then…

Then I turned to look around the room, to search for another way out or for a tool or weapon I could use in a fight-and I saw something else.

On the threshold of the doorway into the next room, there was a puddle of blood.

The breath came out of me with a trembling “Oh!” I had a terrible feeling I knew what I would see if I went into that room.

But I had to go. I had to see. I had to know what was there.

I started moving. As I came closer, I saw a trail of blood leading away from the puddle, leading into the other room.

And then I came closer and I saw a hand-one outstretched hand lying on the floor.

And I came closer. Closer to the door. I saw the arm attached to the hand. I reached the doorway and looked in.

That’s when I saw the body.

It was Waterman.

He was lying on his face in the middle of the floor of a room that looked like a small lounge. One arm was tucked under his torso. The other was outstretched, the hand pointing to the doorway through which I’d just come. Beneath his head, there was another pool of blood.

I rushed to him. I knelt beside him. I felt his neck for a pulse. There was none.

He was dead.