The Truth of the Matter

by Andrew Klavan

  I went on staring out the window. I didn’t see the forest passing or the sky above the forest or the stars gleaming in the sky. I didn’t even see my own faint reflection on the window glass. All I could think of was the people I knew. My mom and dad. Beth. My friends at school. All I could see was the look in their eyes—what that look would be when they saw me accused of murder, when they saw me convicted, taken off to prison. I mean, my mom—she worried frantically about me even at the best of times. I couldn’t take a walk without her thinking I was going to trip and fall down and break my leg or something. How would she ever get through something like this? How would she ever be able to stand it?

  But on the other hand . . . on the other hand, if what this Waterman guy was saying was true, if there really were people who wanted to attack this country, to terrorize people, to bring down all the things that had made us, really, the freest nation that had ever existed in all the long history of the world . . . then how could I just stand by and let it happen? How could I say no?

  I turned back to Waterman . . .

  And in a snapping flash of light, the scene was gone. I was gone. There was nothing but a sort of woozy, searing darkness and then . . .

  I opened my eyes. I was on the floor of the Panic Room, my cheek against the cold tiles. For a moment I couldn’t think of anything, couldn’t remember where I was or what was happening.

  And then I did remember. I remembered the limousine. The forest passing outside the window. Waterman.

  We want to frame you for murder.

  I sat up quickly. I winced as a dagger of pain went through my head, and a wave of nausea washed through my stomach. But I gritted my teeth and fought the pain and sickness down. What did it matter? A little pain was nothing. A little nausea—nothing. I remembered! I remembered what had happened. I remembered how I had become part of the Homelanders.

  I was working for Waterman, for America. I was infiltrating the terrorist organization in an effort to bring them down.

  My hands curled into tight fists. My vision blurred with emotion. I remembered! What I’d done, who I was. All the people who believed in me—my parents, Beth, my friends, Sensei Mike—all the people who hadn’t thought I was a murderer after all, who had trusted I wasn’t one of the bad guys even when I’d doubted it myself. They’d all been right. I’d never hurt Alex, I’d never been a terrorist, I’d only broken out of prison as part of the plan . . .

  For a second, all I could do was sit there, staring through the blur of emotions, joyful and grateful to God that my life was finally coming back to me.

  And then—then my mind cleared. My vision cleared. I looked around and saw where I was. I remembered what was happening.

  I was in the Panic Room. Stuck here behind a door I didn’t know how to open. Stuck here while the seconds ticked away and the Homelanders prepared to blow the place to smithereens.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Sign

  Fighting off my headache and my stomachache and the weakness in my muscles, I grabbed hold of the side of the chest and pulled myself to my feet. How long had I been out? I looked at my watch. I’d only been unconscious about twenty minutes this time. It wasn’t much, but it was long enough for the Homelanders to have set a bomb and run for it. The explosion could go off any minute, any second, for all I knew. How much time did I have left?

  I stared at the wall in front of me—the wall that held the invisible door—that blank, blank wall. The Panic Room struck me as a good name for this place just then because I could feel myself starting to panic.

  But then, as my mind continued clearing, something came back to me. What was it? Just before that last seizure— the last “memory attack,” you might call it—I’d had an idea, hadn’t I? An idea had started to take shape in my mind about how I might be able to get out of here—maybe even get out before the killer—Waylon— and the rest of the Homelanders blew the place up.

  What was it? What had I been thinking?

  I looked around, trying to recapture the half-formed thought. My gaze fell on the chest, the empty chest. Something . . . Something had been there . . .

  And then I saw the tray. The tray that had had the sandwich on it. I’d taken it off the chest when I’d opened it. I’d set it on the floor . . . There was something about the tray, something on the tray . . .

  It all came back to me.

  A flash of pain went through my forehead as I reached down and picked up the 3 x 5 index card Waterman had left for me with the food and water. I had to shut my eyes a moment until the headache passed. But a moment later, I forced my eyes open. I reread the message written on the card:

  Eat. Drink. Build up your strength. You’re going to need it.

  And then, at the bottom, that symbol instead of a signature: that simple stick-figure house, a square with an X inside and a triangle for the roof.

  Why would Waterman sign the note that way? That was the thought that had come to me just before the memory attack knocked me down. What did the symbol mean? The answer had been coming to me when the seizure hit and drove me to the floor and back into the past.

  It occurred to me that he must’ve been trying to tell me something. Why else sign with a symbol instead of his name? And what else could he have been trying to tell me except how to get out of here?

  I remembered how I’d watched him passing his hand over the secret doors. I remembered the pattern had been all straight lines and diagonals. Just like the little house— the straight lines of the walls, the diagonals of the roof and the X inside. Waterman must’ve been passing me the code just in case—just in case the Homelanders arrived— just in case he had to escape and couldn’t help me.

  That’s why he didn’t explain it. Why he didn’t write it out. He was afraid they might be watching, maybe even afraid they had someone inside his organization. I didn’t know. But since that little house symbol was the only hope I had—the only idea I had—I figured I better try to do something with it—now, before Waylon’s bomb went off.

  I moved to the wall again. I was about to put my hand against it, when I hesitated. I pressed my ear against the wall instead. I didn’t want to get out of here only to walk directly into the guns of the Homelanders. I listened. There were no voices out there now, no one talking. The place was empty—or it sounded as if it was empty anyway.

  I backed off. I put my palm on the wall, the way I’d seen Waterman do it. I traced the shape of the house. The square base. The X inside. The triangle of the roof.

  Nothing. No motor noise. No sliding door.

  I licked my dry lips. My heart was sinking. I could almost feel the seconds ticking away. I tried again. Again, nothing. Maybe the door had some kind of secret sensor that read Waterman’s fingerprints or his DNA or something.

  But then why leave me the symbol?

  I thought back to when I’d seen Waterman make the sign over the door. I could see there was a pattern. It was always the same pattern—the lines and diagonals. But there was something else as well. He had always done it in one smooth, flowing motion, never breaking off, never moving his hand and never retracing any of the motions he’d already made.

  There must be a way to draw the little house with the X inside in one motion without lifting my hand from the wall.

  I tried it. No, I had to go over one line twice. I tried it again. Then again. I couldn’t make it happen. Every time, I had to retrace one of the lines. And every time I was done, there was no motor. No door.

  I stared at the pattern on the card. There had to be a way. Waterman did it. I could do it. He wouldn’t have given me the symbol if it didn’t work. I had to believe that or there was no hope.

  I tried again. I traced a diagonal across the wall. Another one. Another. Wait, this time it was working. A straight line, drawing the house. Then—yes!—only one more line. I did it. I finished the whole thing without retracing my steps.

  And immediately, there it was. The grinding engine in the wall. The panel slid back in front
of me.

  The door to the Panic Room was open. I was free.

  I stepped out into the main part of the bunker—and the first thing I saw was the bomb.

  It was sitting in plain sight, right there on one of the workstations. It was a large cube made of several blocks of some kind of brown putty. Explosives. I’d seen stuff like that on TV. There was a device and wires wrapped around the putty block. There was a timer there with red numbers quickly blinking away.

  Six minutes and fifteen seconds left before the bomb exploded; 6:14 . . . 6:13 . . . The numbers clicked swiftly down.

  That was the first thing I saw. The next thing I saw was the Homelanders.

  A movement caught my eye. I turned toward it. Something was moving on one of the monitors hanging on the wall. It must have been displaying the video readout from a security camera posted in the ruins above.

  I could see by the video that the dawn was breaking outside now. There was a clear view on the monitor of some of the broken pillars and ruined buildings standing in the morning mist. I could see the Homelanders moving among them. Searching through them.

  They were searching, I knew, for me.

  I turned from monitor to monitor. Each one showed a different portion of the scene outside. Each one showed different ruined buildings, different columns and empty arches and patches of fog snaking through them, twining around them. Each monitor also showed one of the Homelanders.

  I counted six of them altogether. Each one carried a machine gun. They moved slowly through the ruins, their heads turning this way and that, their eyes scanning the area.

  All except one. One stood still. He held his gun with its butt propped on his hip, the barrel pointed to the sky. I recognized the place where he was standing. He was right outside the brick cylinder that protected the entry. He was guarding the only way out of here. He was making sure I didn’t escape.

  So down here, the bomb was ticking—six minutes and one second now . . . 6:00 . . . 5:59 . . . 5:58 . . .

  And up there, the Homelanders were patrolling and guarding the way out.

  If I stayed in the bunker, I’d be blown up. If I tried to leave, I’d be shot.

  I looked at the bomb on the table again. For a moment I wondered if maybe I could just disconnect the wires and defuse it. But somewhere in the bottom of my mind was the absolute certainty that the device was sensitive to the touch. Maybe it was something I knew from my training with the Homelanders. But however I knew it, I felt very sure if I even touched the device, it would go off then and there.

  So that was what I saw: first the bomb . . . then the Homelanders on the monitors patrolling the ruins outside . . . And then . . .

  Then I turned to look around the room, to search for another way out or for a tool or weapon I could use in a fight—and I saw something else.

  On the threshold of the doorway into the next room, there was a puddle of blood.

  The breath came out of me with a trembling “Oh!” I had a terrible feeling I knew what I would see if I went into that room.

  But I had to go. I had to see. I had to know what was there.

  I started moving. As I came closer, I saw a trail of blood leading away from the puddle, leading into the other room.

  And then I came closer and I saw a hand—one outstretched hand lying on the floor.

  And I came closer. Closer to the door. I saw the arm attached to the hand. I reached the doorway and looked in.

  That’s when I saw the body.

  It was Waterman.

  He was lying on his face in the middle of the floor of a room that looked like a small lounge. One arm was tucked under his torso. The other was outstretched, the hand pointing to the doorway through which I’d just come. Beneath his head, there was another pool of blood.

  I rushed to him. I knelt beside him. I felt his neck for a pulse. There was none.

  He was dead.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Time Running Out

  The world seemed to spin around me. I thought the jolt was going to overwhelm me. Waterman dead. Executed by the Homelanders while I lay unconscious and undiscovered in the Panic Room.

  And all the others? Gone. Escaped? Dead? I didn’t know.

  I stood up and staggered back to the door. I leaned heavily against the frame.

  Waterman was dead. My contact. My ally. The only ally whose name I knew. Even if I managed to get out of this death trap alive, where would I go now? Who would I turn to for help?

  A wave of hopelessness washed over me. I felt as if all my strength had drained away. For a second or two, I actually thought I wouldn’t be able to move again.

  But there was no time for that. No time to indulge that sort of emotion. The bomb was ticking. I had to keep going, had to. Waterman was dead. All right. That’s the way it was. He had died trying to protect America from its enemies—trying to protect liberty from its enemies. A lot of people have died that way in a lot of places over the years. God knows their names—every one of them—I believe that—but they’re beyond my help. The only thing I could do was go on, never give in, keep fighting the fight they fought.

  I pushed off the door. I forced down my dizziness and sickness. I felt something flaring up inside me, a new heat, a new fire of determination. I knew I had only minutes to live. But I was going to use every one of them. I was going to do everything I could to get out of here, to find help, to find someone who would believe me when I told them about the Homelanders, to find someone who would help me stop them, help me bring them down.

  A new bolt of pain went through my head, and for a second I was afraid another memory attack would knock me over. I couldn’t let that happen. I massaged my brow with my fingers, trying to think. My eyes went to Waterman’s body one more time. The pool of blood. The outstretched hand . . . I wondered . . .

  As much as he could, Waterman had tried to watch out for me, to think of me and my safety. He had brought me to this bunker in the hopes of evading the Home-landers. He had hidden me in the Panic Room so I wouldn’t be discovered during the memory attacks. He had left me the symbol so I could escape if he was captured or killed. And now . . .

  I looked at the pool of blood on the floor. The trail of blood leading into the room. The second pool beneath Waterman’s head.

  He had been shot in the doorway. He had struggled to get into the room. He had managed to position himself before he was shot again—position himself with his hand outstretched, pointing . . .

  I turned and followed the direction of Waterman’s hand. He was pointing to the slim section of wall beside the doorway. That’s all it was, a slim section of wall between the door and a metal shelf. Blank wall.

  I went to it. I raised my palm. I traced the shape of the house against the blank wall. Instantly, there was the sound of a motor. A panel slid back. A small panel this time. A hidden cache about the size of a paperback book.

  I reached into the cache and at once my hand touched a metal object. My fingers closed over it. I drew it out.

  I knew what it was as soon as I saw it. It was the little gizmo Milton One had been holding when I first came into the compound. The little control panel the size and shape of an iPhone. It was the thing Milton One had used to control Milton Two, that flying security robot that had blasted me when I tried to escape from Waterman and Dodger Jim.

  I looked from the little device back to Waterman’s body where it lay on the floor.

  “Thanks,” I whispered to him.

  The Homelanders had killed him—and now they were trying to kill me, to make sure there was no one left who could stop them.

  Well, they could try. But at least now I had a weapon. Waterman had left me a weapon.

  And I wasn’t going down without a fight.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Battle Begins

  Four minutes thirty-three seconds . . . 4:32 . . . 4:31 . . .

  I was glad to get out of that room of death. But the moment I moved back to the main part of the bunker, I sa
w the bomb again and the seconds ticking away. I stood in front of the device, holding the small controller to Milton Two in my hand. Four minutes twenty-five seconds now . . . So little time.

  I tore my eyes away from the red numbers and looked down to study the controller.

  At first, the little screen was blank. But I found a button built into the top of the device and pressed it. The gizmo’s monitor light came on. The small screen showed a terrain map with a green dot blinking on it and several blinking red dots as well. There was also a series of numbers up in the right-hand corner. More than anything, it reminded me of a PSP video-game screen.

  Which was a good thing. I was always a pretty decent gamer. Not a game-dork or anything: I didn’t sit around getting fat on Pop-Tarts while fragging Covenant Grunts for fourteen hours at a time or anything. But when a cool new game came out, whether it was an old-fashioned platformer or a full-blown shooter, I was usually the first among my friends to get the hang of it. For some reason, I had a knack for figuring out a level even while escaping a horde of zombies through an underground storage facility. My dad sometimes said kind of bitterly that my generation had developed some new sort of DNA that helped us understand games—but I think he was just jealous because he usually got killed while he was still lifting up his eyeglasses in order to see which button on the controller was which.

  So, forcing myself to stay calm, to ignore the dwindling red numbers on the time bomb, I did a quick study of the controller’s readout.