HL 04-The Final Hour (4 page)

“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.