The Final Hour

CHAPTER TEN

The warden’s name was Wilson Tanker. He was a large, square-built man with a shaven head and a sharp silver mustache. He wore a black suit and a black shirt and a string tie with a turquoise clasp. He had such narrow eyes they were almost buried in the windburned ridges and wrinkles of his cheeks. He seemed constantly to be squinting at you, like he was trying to make you out in the dark.

He was sitting in a swivel chair behind a gunmetal-gray desk. It was daylight now-it had taken me more than twelve hours to get in to see him. The window behind him looked out on a section of the prison I’d never seen, a wall of grated windows across a narrow courtyard two stories down. Trucks occasionally rumbled through the court on their way from somewhere to somewhere else-somewhere I couldn’t go.

Two flagpoles stood against the paneled wall, an American flag and a state flag, one on either side of the window, on either side of Tanker as he leaned back and swiveled this way and that.

He had me standing in front of the desk. There was a guard standing beside my left shoulder and another standing beside my right. Chuck Dunbar was standing in back of me. I guess you could say I was well guarded.

For a long time, Warden Tanker just went on swiveling back and forth, back and forth, squinting narrowly up at me.

Then after a while he asked, “And just how would you know there’s going to be a terrorist attack on New Year’s Eve?”

My frustration felt like a creature trapped in my chest trying to get out, a great big gorilla or something pounding on the cage bars of my insides. I let out a slow breath, hoping to calm the gorilla down. It didn’t help much. “I was with them,” I said. “The terrorists. I overheard them talking.”

Warden Tanker looked at the guard to the left of me. Then he looked at the guard to the right of me. Then he looked over my shoulder at Dunbar. “Uh-huh,” he said finally. He had a thin, high reedy voice that came out of him in a slow drawl. “So why did you wait until now to tell me?”

I stammered stupidly as I tried to put the words together. Finally, I managed to say, “I didn’t remember.”

Warden Tanker sort of rolled that around in his mouth for a moment, then drawled it slowly back at me: “You didn’t remember.”

“That’s right!”

“Just kind of slipped your mind, did it?”

“Yes… No… I had amnesia.”

“Amnesia.”

“Well, not exactly amnesia. I took a drug…”

“I’ll just bet you did.”

“No, not that kind of drug. A special drug so I wouldn’t remember. So the terrorists couldn’t get any information out of me.”

Once again, the gorilla of frustration threatened to tear me wide open, as the warden swiveled slowly, moving his eyes from one guard to another as if they were all sharing a private joke.

“And you got this drug exactly where?” Tanker asked. “From the amnesia fairy, I’m guessing.”

The guard at my left shoulder snorted.

“Look,” I said, trying to control my temper. “I know this all sounds hard to believe.”

“Oh, you know that, do you?” asked the warden.

“Yes, but you have to believe it. You have to.”

Slowly, thoughtfully, Warden Tanker stroked his silver mustache with his hand. The way he did it reminded me of Sensei Mike. Sensei Mike had a big black mustache, and he’d stroke it with his hand sometimes when he was trying to hide the fact that he was laughing. But then Sensei Mike was always laughing because he thought the world was kind of a funny place in a lot of ways. The warden, on the other hand, was laughing at me. “Supposing I do believe you,” he went on slowly, “what do you expect me to do about it?”

The Frustration Creature was going so crazy inside me that for a minute I couldn’t answer-couldn’t answer without trying to throw this guy out the window. But finally, I managed to blurt out, “Tell somebody! Homeland Security. The FBI. Anybody! What’s wrong with you?”

I felt a sharp blow to the back of my head. I stumbled forward a step. Dunbar had hit me.

“Speak to the warden with respect,” he growled.

“You see, son,” the warden said-and I so wanted to punch him. So. “My problem is: A lot of cons come in here with a lot of stories. Hoping to get some new privileges or just start some kind of trouble. You know how I can tell when they’re lying?”

I couldn’t answer. I gestured helplessly.

“I can tell they’re lying because their mouths are moving.” He waved me away like I was a bad smell. “You have something you want to communicate with the outside world, call your lawyer.”

The guards on either side of me took hold of my arms, ready to drag me out of there.

“I did call my lawyer,” I said as the Frustration Creature raged and hammered at the bars of his cage inside my chest. “His office is closed for the holidays. Even if they get back to me-and even if they believe me-it could be too late.”

But the warden wasn’t listening. He had already opened a folder on his desk, was already turning to other business. “Well, then I guess you’re out of luck,” he drawled.

I started to answer… but then I stopped. My mouth shut with an audible sound.

Because there was no point. The guards were drawing me toward the door and I realized: There was no way I would ever make Warden Tanker believe me. To him, I was just another lying con like a million others he’d seen. And the truth-the really terrible truth was, the story was so incredible, I’m not sure I would have believed me if I were sitting in his place.

“Come on,” said Dunbar with a jerk of his head.

The guards pulled me toward the door. The warden went about his business. And as I stumbled out, it hit me full force: The Great Death was coming, coming soon, New Year’s Eve.

And at that moment, suddenly-terribly-I knew what I had to do.