The Final Hour

CHAPTER FOUR

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?”

“I know what you are,” I said. I was trying not to seem intimidated by him. I was intimidated by him, but I was trying not to seem like it.

“Your history teacher, Mr. Sherman, has been telling you about me.”

“That’s right.”

“And what has he told you?”

“He said you were a powerful guy with powerful ideas. He said even if they convicted me of killing Alex, you could get me out of prison.”

He spread his hands, gesturing toward the room. “As you see.”

I nodded. “So far,” I said. I didn’t want to give him too much too fast. During the course of my murder trial, Sherman had been telling me all about his friends the Homelanders, all about what they were trying to do, and how I could join them and help them in their mission. I’d pretended to let him convince me slowly, but I couldn’t seem to have changed too suddenly or completely. My life depended on making this convincing.

Prince now brought his hands back together and tapped his fingertips against one another thoughtfully. “What else has Mr. Sherman told you?”

“He told me you wanted to destroy my country.”

Prince laughed-or at least he flashed his white teeth again. “That’s a little strong. I don’t want to destroy your country, Charlie. I just want to… transform it.”

I managed to smile back. “Transform it, right, that’s what I meant.”

Prince turned his chair a half cycle and stood up out of it. He walked across to the big window and looked out at a blue sky with large white clouds moving swiftly through it.

“Do you think your country is perfect?” he asked me.

“Obviously not, since it’s sending me to prison when I didn’t do anything. If I thought it was perfect, I wouldn’t be here, would I?”

“Exactly. Exactly.” He stood silently looking out. Then he said: “People don’t like change, Charlie. They get set in their ways very easily. Custom-habit-is like a drug, very addictive. Before they’re willing to embrace a new way, they have to be shaken up. They have to be…” He tried to find the word.

I helped him out. “Terrorized,” I said.

“Frightened, yes. They have to understand that they can’t hide from what’s coming. That nothing can protect them from it.”

“Protect them from…”

“Righteousness,” he said. He turned to face me and I saw now that the brightness of his brown eyes was not intelligence-or, that is, it wasn’t just intelligence. It was madness too. He was out of his mind with a mad dream of power. “Nothing can protect them from righteousness,” he said. “You believe in righteousness, don’t you, Charlie? You believe in good and evil.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Your country is steeped in evil. In false religion. In false freedom that lets people choose to do what’s wrong in the eyes of God. Take your own situation.”

“What about it?”

“Well, you said it yourself: Would a righteous nation allow you to be sent away to prison for twenty-five years for something you didn’t do?”

I didn’t answer him. I’d been listening to Sherman talk like this for weeks now. It was always the same. They start with a falsehood: You think your country is perfect. Then they disprove the falsehood: Your country makes mistakes. Then they leap to an even bigger falsehood: Therefore, your country is evil.

I knew what Sensei Mike would say: What a bunch of chuckleheads!

But I didn’t say that. I didn’t think it would be wise. I didn’t think it was a good idea to try to explain the whole God-made-us-free-to-choose business either. I didn’t try to tell him that’s why it’s not a question whether your country is perfect or imperfect; it’s a question of whether it’s free or not free. Somehow I just didn’t think Prince would get any of that. And I didn’t want to stain his pretty rug with my blood.

“So you’re going to blow people up until they’re righteous,” I said-but I smiled as I said it, as if I were joking.

Prince flashed those pearly teeth again, moving back to his chair. Standing behind it, his hands on the high back as he swiveled it this way and that meditatively.

“Something like that,” he said. “Something very much like that, in fact. And the question is: Are you going to help us? We’ll have to doctor you up a little so you don’t look too much like your wanted posters, but then, with a face like yours, with an all-American demeanor like yours, with your knowledge of the customs of the country, you could get into a lot of places I might not. You could help us a lot, Charlie, if you wanted to. Do you want to?”

I let a long moment go by, but there was never any question what my answer would be. Prince and I both knew he would kill me if I said no. He would kill me if I said yes and he didn’t believe I meant it. But I had already told Sherman I would join the group. That’s why they’d busted me out in the first place.

So I nodded quickly. “Sure,” I said. “Count me in.”