The Final Hour

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The Cessna flew low over green rolling hills. Then, after a while, Patel found the highway and we followed its winding white path. As the winter sun sank and the pale blue of the sky grew deeper, small cities appeared sparkling below us and then melded into thick forests or faded away into empty fields.

Soon more highways seemed to join the one we were following, becoming a snaky tangle of pavement amid the surrounding foliage. More cities seemed to rise beneath us. In the intervals between them we saw broad highways flanked with gas stations and malls. The dusk gathered slowly and the world turned gray.

I was sitting up front in the passenger seat again, Rose behind me, Patel next to me, Mike behind him. I peered through the side window at the changing light outside and the changing scene below.

“There’s the river,” Patel said to me finally. His voice crackled over the headset and under the thrum of the engine. There were bursts of static and distant voices on the radio, but the volume was very low.

I followed the gesture of his hand, looked ahead through the windshield and saw where the graying landscape reached what at first seemed like a sudden ending. Then the darker gray of the river became visible, a long, thick line. Another little while and I could make out the water, the low December sun behind us sending a fanning, sparkling line across it to the far side.

“And look there,” said Patel, pointing to my side.

I turned and looked. Far off against the deep blue distance, I could make out the Manhattan skyline, a jagged dance of stone. The lights were just beginning to come on in some of the windows.

“Nice, huh,” said Patel kind of wistfully.

“Awesome,” I said. It was. An awesome, amazing city.

“I grew up there,” he went on. “In Brooklyn, over on the other side.”

“No kidding.”

“I miss it now, I’ll tell you.”

“Sure,” I said. “Home, right?”

“Exactly. Home.”

“I miss mine too,” I said-and I felt it. As far away as I’d been, as much trouble as I’d seen, I’d never felt as far from being reunited with my family and friends as I felt just then. Just then, to be honest, it seemed impossible it would ever happen.

“A city like New York,” said Patel. I glanced over at him. He kept one hand resting lightly on the plane’s yoke and the other lying limp on his leg-the way pilots do to keep from oversteering. He gave me a smile, trying to sound relaxed and cool. But I could tell he was feeling the pressure too. We all were. “A city like New York gets into your blood somehow.”

“Does it?” I said doubtfully.

“You don’t like it?”

“New York?” I shrugged. “I like it okay.”

“You’re more of a small-town guy, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess. To me, New York is kind of noisy and crowded and-I don’t know-like, overwhelming.”

I heard Patel laugh a little over the headset. It was sort of a sad sound. He was thinking about home. “I’ve heard people say that,” he said. “I never noticed.”

“In New York, everyone’s always walking around really fast with these serious looks on their faces. What’s that about?”

He laughed again, fondly now. “Everyone thinks he’s very important and has something very important to do. That’s what makes it New York.”

I nodded, smiling, but I wasn’t thinking about New York. I was thinking about Spring Hill, my hometown. I remembered those quick flashing scenes I’d seen last night in the falling panic of my memory attack. Scenes of my life back home, of being a kid. My mom driving me to the mall for my karate lessons. The baseball field in Oak Street Park where I played with Alex when we were still good friends. The path by the river where I walked with Beth when we were just getting to know each other… No one rushing around very much or looking very serious or feeling very important. A different kind of place.

“I guess it’s all about what you’re used to,” I said.

“I guess so,” said Patel.

We had reached the river now. Patel banked the plane to the right and started flying over the water, following its flow. The lowering sun sent its pale light pouring in through my window. I could feel the warmth of it on the side of my face. I looked ahead, watching the city skyline growing larger and larger, more and more lights coming on in the windows. Below us, too, and to the left, city streets sprang up on the riverbank, stores and apartment towers, their lights also coming on. To the right, great surging brown cliffs sprang up darkly beside the water. As we flew toward the city, another small plane came toward us, flying just above us and to the left. It passed overhead, not far away at all.

“Almost there,” Patel said after a while. And then-as if he’d been thinking about it all this time-he said, “To me, no matter where I go, New York is always home. When I’m away from sidewalks and tall buildings, I feel like I’m nowhere.”

I smiled, but it was hard for me to imagine feeling that way about such a big city. I had been on the run so long, been trying so hard to get back to my old life, that it felt to me no one could want to be anywhere besides Spring Hill.

“For the last three years, I’ve had to live in Virginia for my job,” Patel went on. “It just about drives me crazy. As soon as I can, I’m planning to bring my wife…”

My wife…

Those were the last words Patel ever spoke in this world. The next instant, the plane’s side window shattered. The windshield went scarlet with Patel’s blood and he was dead.

I could only sit there staring as he fell toward me, held in place by his shoulder-strap seat belt, his right hand still convulsively gripping the yoke.

I heard Rose roar out something in my ear. Dazed and horrified, I had only one second to look up and see the chopper that had pulled up alongside us in the darkening sky. A gunman sat balanced in its open door, his automatic rifle trained at our cockpit.

Milton One’s words came back to me:

Prince will know you escaped. You’re the one person who might know enough to catch up to him, so even though he hasn’t got a lot of manpower left, he’s sure to be looking out for you, waiting for a chance to send someone after you.

The Homelanders had found us. They were here.

The wind rushed in through Patel’s broken window.

Then, the next moment, Patel’s body fell forward in his harness, pushing the yoke in. The plane pitched down.

We plunged, engine screaming, toward the river below.