The Truth of the Matter

  “No. And don’t ever try it again.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  Mike pulled his mustache down over his mouth with one hand, hiding a smile. “Go ahead, chucklehead. What question?”

  I hesitated. Mike never talked much about being in the Army or what he did in the War on Terror. He never told anyone how the president gave him a medal for running to an armored truck under fire, getting hold of a big .50-caliber gun, and fighting off more than a hundred Taliban to save his fellow soldiers. He never told anyone about getting hit by a bullet that day and having to have a piece of titanium put in his leg where the bone used to be. But I’d looked him up on the Internet and found out all about it.

  “You know that thing you did in Afghanistan? That thing you won the medal for from the president?” I asked him.

  Mike’s hand went on hovering at his mustache. He did that a lot, usually to hide his smile. Mike always had this smile on his lips and this look in his eyes like he was secretly laughing at something. It was as if he thought just about everything was a joke, as if the whole world was just one big collection of chuckleheads making a mess of things and it was all pretty funny. But now, his eyes had gone serious. The smile that usually hid behind his mustache was gone.

  “Yeah,” he said quietly. “Yeah, I seem to remember something about that.”

  I wasn’t sure I should go on. I knew he didn’t like talking about it. But now that I’d started, I said, “Would you do it again? Knowing you could get killed. Knowing you might never get home to see your wife and daughter. Now that you’ve had time to think about it, I mean, away from the battle, if you could go back and make the choice sort of more, I don’t know, calmly . . . would you still do it?”

  For a long moment, Sensei Mike didn’t answer me. The dojo was quiet except for the sound of Pete banging around in the changing room in back.

  When he did speak, Mike still didn’t answer me. He just said, “Life’s funny, chucklehead. You only get one and you don’t want to throw it away. But you can’t really live it at all unless you’re willing to give it up for the things you love. If you’re not at least willing to die for something— something that really matters—in the end you die for nothing.”

  Then, all at once, I was standing in the dark. I looked around me, dazed. Where was I? Oh yes, now I saw. I was at the reservoir again. Back at the place where I always met Waterman. There was my mom’s SUV parked by the curb . . .

  Tonight was the night. I was going to give Waterman my answer. I was going to make my choice.

  I had that weird feeling of confusion again. How had I gotten here? Hadn’t I just been in the dojo a second ago? But no, now it came back to me. After talking to Sensei Mike, I’d driven out to the end of Oak Street. I’d parked in the same place I’d parked that night Alex and I had our argument, that night he’d gotten out of my car and walked into the park where he was killed. I’d sat there behind the wheel of my mom’s SUV and stared through the windshield into the twilight descending on the park. I prayed silently. I asked God to help me figure out what I should do.

  As always, the prayer helped. As I stood out by the reservoir now, I did have a clearer idea of what I was supposed to do. The only problem was: I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t even want to think about doing it. I just wanted to tell Waterman no—no, thanks. I want to live my life. I want to go to college. I want to join the Air Force. And hey—by the way, I just fell in love. I mean, do you mind? Couldn’t you just leave me alone? There has to be someone else you could go to . . .

  But my thoughts were cut off as Waterman’s limousine approached out of the darkness on the street ahead.

  It came on slowly. Its lights were off so that it was just a large black shape against the blackness of the trees. It pulled to the curb and stopped. Its headlights came on once, then again. A signal.

  I started walking toward it.

  I told myself it was going to be all right. I told myself that all I had to do was say the word and I could go back to my life. Okay, so maybe I wasn’t a hero. Maybe I wasn’t Superman. Whatever. The truth was, I couldn’t bear the sadness of leaving my parents, my friends, my girl— maybe forever. I couldn’t stand the thought of their tears as they’d watch me taken away to prison for a murder I hadn’t done. I couldn’t stand the thought of the loneliness that would follow.

  As I came near the limousine, the car’s back door swung open. The light inside went on, and I caught a glimpse of Waterman sitting in the backseat, waiting. I had an intense feeling of dislike for the man. I wished he’d never come here. Why did he have to come anyway? Why did he have to come to me?

  I got in the backseat. I pulled the door shut. The light went out and Waterman became a shadow in the darkness. I could only make out the shape of him turned toward me. I could only see the dark glitter of his eyes, watching, waiting.

  “Well?” I heard him say quietly.

  “Okay,” I said, my voice catching in my throat. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Rude Awakening

  Okay, I’ll do it.

  For a long second after I spoke those words, I didn’t know where I was. The limousine, the street, the dojo, the high school—they had all seemed so real that my mind couldn’t take in the fact that they had vanished like a dream. But they had. They were suddenly gone completely.

  My sense of my own presence seeped into my consciousness slowly. It was not a good feeling. My head was throbbing. My stomach was turning. My body was bruised and aching from its fall off the rock to the forest floor. Leaves and sticks and pebbles were pressing painfully into the side of my face.

  With a sense of growing misery, I began to remember where I was. My home was gone. My family was gone. My life—Beth—everything . . . I was here, in the forest, alone. Armed guards were searching for me everywhere. And all because I had told Waterman: Okay.

  I couldn’t open my eyes—not right away. Maybe I didn’t want to. Maybe I wanted to pretend for another moment that I was still back in Spring Hill. But strangely, as the reality of the situation forced itself into my mind, I realized that things were different now than they were before I lost consciousness. I mean, I guess things were the same—the situation was the same—but I was different— my feelings about the situation had changed—and somehow that changed everything else.

  Before this last memory attack, I had been pretty much on the brink of despair. I’d felt sorry for myself. I’d been angry—angry at God, even—so angry I could hardly even pray except to call up to heaven bitterly: What do I do now?

  But remembering that day—that awful day of decision before I’d made my choice, before I’d told Waterman okay—made me feel different.

  Because now I knew: I had chosen to do this thing. I had chosen the path that had led me here and I had chosen it, knowing that it might lead here. I had loved Beth and I had left her behind. I’d loved my parents and I’d left them behind. I’d loved my friends and my home and my life, even though I hadn’t really realized how much I loved them—and I’d left them all behind.

  And here was the thing, the weirdest thing: I’d left them behind because I loved them. Beth and my parents and my friends and my life—my free, American life. I loved them, and if I had a chance to protect them from the people who wanted to destroy them, then I had to take that chance even if it meant I would never see them again. I hadn’t asked for that chance. It wasn’t fair that it had fallen to me. It wasn’t fair that it had all gone wrong and left me in this place, in this hardship and danger. It wasn’t even fair that these people—the Homelanders— had organized to attack us, to hurt us, to kill us . . .

  But life doesn’t do fair. I don’t know why it’s that way, but it sure is. I mean, it wasn’t fair that I got to grow up in a nice, safe community, while some other kid in some other place was maybe getting shot at or couldn’t get enough to eat. It wasn’t fair that I had a happy home with parents who loved each other while Alex’s mom and dad couldn’t st
ay together. A lot of things aren’t fair and I don’t think they ever will be, not in this life, I mean.

  I understood all that when I got in the limousine with Waterman. I made my choice because I understood it. I knew it wasn’t about things being fair. It wasn’t about them being easy or safe. It was about who I was, who I wanted to be, what I wanted my life to be about, what I wanted to stand for, live for, even die for if I had to. It was about what I wanted to make out of this soul God gave me.

  So I wasn’t angry anymore. I wasn’t bitter anymore. I wasn’t in despair. What am I supposed to do now? wasn’t much of a prayer, I guess. But God had answered it anyway, because that’s what he’s like. I knew now what I was supposed to do. I knew exactly.

  I was supposed to keep fighting. I was supposed to keep going, as long as I could, as far as I could. I was supposed to refuse to give in. I didn’t know if I was going to win in the end. I didn’t even know if I was going to survive. But I knew that I was supposed to look at this situation I was in right now—look at this trap that seemed to have no way of escape—and I was supposed to find a way—or die trying—for the sake of the people I loved.

  With a new determination in me, I opened my eyes.

  The Homelander guards—five of them—were standing in a circle around me where I lay on the forest floor. They had their machine guns trained on me. They had their fingers on the triggers.

  I stirred slowly. I became aware of footsteps crunching through the nearby brush. The next moment, as I started to sit up, the sixth Homelander, Waylon, came storming out of the forest to join the others.

  He walked straight past the guards without stopping. He stood over me as I struggled to rise.

  He smiled. Then he let out a single curse and kicked me in the face, sending me spiraling back into unconsciousness.

  PART III

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Handlebar and Blond Guy

  Slowly, I lifted my head. It felt like trying to lift a block of cement. I groaned as a bolt of pain shot through me, right behind my eyes. I could feel the drying, sticky blood stiffening on the side of my face. I tried to move. My hands were caught behind me. Curling my fingers around I could feel the duct tape wrapped around my wrists, holding my arms in place.

  I gave a start as it all came back to me. The Homelanders surrounding me. Waylon kicking me . . .

  “Take it easy, punk. Unless you want to get hit again.”

  I turned to my left. It was the blond guard who’d spoken—the one M-2 had blasted in the forest. The burn mark was still there, right in the center of his forehead. I remembered how his eyes had looked angry and mean on the bunker monitor. It was worse up close like this. Up close, his eyes were fiery pools of rage and cruelty.

  I was in the backseat of a car, a midsize sedan. We were climbing up a winding, narrow road along what looked like the side of a mountain. There was forest rising at one window: green pine trees interspersed with winter-gray oaks and maples. At the other window, there was nothing but open space as if we were on the edge of a sharp drop.

  I was sitting in the middle of the seat. The blond guard was to my left, the guard with the handlebar mustache was to my right. Up in front, the stocky guard—the one M-2 had taken out by the bunker entrance—was driving. Through the windshield, I could see another car on the road up ahead. I guessed the rest of the Homelanders were in there, including Waylon himself.

  There was a squawk of static. The driver spoke into his shoulder mike.

  “He’s awake.”

  A voice—Waylon’s thick guttural accented voice—came back at once: “If he tries anything, bust him up. And I mean anything.”

  Suddenly, there was a knife pressed to the side of my face. It was a wicked-looking dagger, the blade thick and sharp. The metal was cold against my bloodied skin, and the sharp edge dug into me. I couldn’t move my head without getting cut. I could only shift my eyes toward the guard with the handlebar. He was the one holding the knife.

  “You hear that, tough guy? If you try anything, we’re gonna start cutting off pieces of you and feeding them to the squirrels out there.”

  I didn’t answer. He pressed the blade against me even harder—so hard I thought it would slice into me.

  “You hear me?”

  “I hear you,” I said.

  With that, he pulled the knife away. I watched as he pushed his khaki jacket open and slipped the blade into a holster on his belt.

  The car continued to climb. I rocked back and forth as we went quickly around one curve and then switch-backed into another.

  “Where are we going?” I said.

  “Shut up,” said Handlebar.

  “I’m just asking,” I said. I didn’t want him to think I was intimidated by him. I was intimidated by him, but I didn’t want him to think so.

  “We’re going to a place where no one can hear you scream,” said the blond guard with vicious pleasure. “You’re gonna be doing a lot of screaming and we don’t want to disturb the neighbors.”

  “Hey, knock off the conversation,” said Handlebar.

  “I’m just saying,” said the blond guy, smirking. “I’m just giving him a little preview of what happens next.”

  For a couple of minutes after that, I kept silent. I was thinking—or trying to think. It isn’t easy to stay focused when you’re scared out of your wits. But I was thinking: the last time I was in the clutches of these jokers, they were torturing me. Now it sounded as if they were planning to torture me again. So the question was: Why? Why take the time to rough me up? Why didn’t they just kill me the way they’d killed Waterman? They must be after information. But what was it they thought I knew?

  I tried to go into my memory to get at the answer, but the pathways into the past seemed to still be blocked. Despite my memory attacks, my brain seemed to be giving up its information bit by bit at its own pace. There was something, though. Something I’d heard more recently, something I hadn’t been paying attention to at the time . . .

  The car turned hard as we hit another sharp switchback in the road. I didn’t have a seat belt on and I was forced over until my shoulder pressed into Handlebar. At the window for a moment, there was nothing visible but blue sky.

  Then the car straightened and we continued our racing climb up the mountain. I had to shift in my seat to sit upright. Handlebar gave me an irritated push, helping me along.

  I decided to start talking again, see if I could get some hints about what the Homelanders were after. I had to try anything I could to get out of this and with my hands tied, I didn’t have a lot of options.

  “So what’re you guys, sadists or something?” I asked— I tried to put a sneer in my voice as I said it. I thought maybe if I could taunt them a little, I could make them angry enough to answer. “What, do you just torture people for the fun of it?”

  “I thought I told you to shut up,” said Handlebar darkly.

  “Hey, I’m just making conversation. You know, to pass the time during the drive. Otherwise I’ll have to start singing ‘99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.’”

  “You do, and I’ll cut your throat.”

  I smiled. It wasn’t easy: I didn’t feel much like smiling. Plus my face hurt, and smiling didn’t help it any. “You’re not gonna cut my throat,” I said with more confidence than I felt.

  Handlebar pushed back the side of his jacket to show me the knife in its holster again. “Oh no?”

  I manufactured another sneer. “No. It’s like your friend over there said, you’re taking me somewhere to work me over. That means you want to know something. Unless you’re just one of those weirdos who likes beating up on people . . .”

  Handlebar turned away, refusing to answer, but the blond guy said, “I’ll like it. I’ll like doing it to you. I owe you for blasting me with that gizmo. So yeah, I’ll enjoy making you talk. And you will talk, believe me.”

  “Wow,” I said. “You’re a real tough guy when you’re surrounded by friends with guns.”

>   Blond Guy’s eyes flashed and he drew back his fist as if to hammer me.

  But Handlebar shut him down. “That’s enough,” he said. “Now shut up, both of you.” He seemed to have kind of a limited vocabulary.

  Blond Guy lowered his fist. I went back to thinking. I was right, I thought, they did want information. But what?

  And now I remembered . . . Something Waylon had said to me just before the bunker had blown up. I had been so keyed up waiting for the explosion that I’d barely noticed it at the time. Then, afterward, focused on my effort to escape, I’d forgotten all about it.

  It was something Waylon said when he was taunting me. There’s only one other person who knows about you at all. And before you die—which will be in agony, by the way—you’re going to tell me who he is, and you’re going to die knowing that I’m going to kill him too.

  It’s always amazing to me how just when things seem to be impossibly bad, impossibly dark, some distant light shines through, some little handhold you can grab to keep from going completely under. Here I was, helpless, tied up, being spirited away to some place where these clowns were planning to torture me to death, and suddenly I realized: Waterman and his crew weren’t the only ones, after all. There must be someone else who knows my mission, someone who can help me and clear my name.

  For a moment or two, I racked my brain, trying to think of who it might be, but the name just wasn’t there. It wasn’t there yet anyway. If the drug Waterman gave me kept doing its trick, if I kept having these memory attacks, eventually the whole story would come back to me— maybe even including the name of my ally.

  The car continued its winding climb up the mountainside. No other cars passed us. No other cars came up behind. We must’ve been pretty far from civilization at this point. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around.