The Truth of the Matter (8 page)

“Okay,” I said. “I promise not to tell. What’s the big secret?”

“We want to frame you for Alex’s murder.”

I sat staring at him as if I hadn’t heard him. I hadn’t really—at least I hadn’t been able to totally comprehend what he said. The meaning of it reached me slowly. And then I answered, “I . . . What?”

“We want to plant your DNA on the murder weapon, traces of Alex’s blood on your clothes. We want to rush the case to trial as quickly as we can and basically railroad you into prison for murder.”

I went on staring at him—or at his shadow in the dark. It seemed to take long, long minutes before each new sentence he spoke made sense to me. “You want to send me to prison?”

“Oh, don’t worry, we’re going to help you escape.”

“Oh.”

“But your family, your friends, your girl, everyone you know, is going to think you’re a murderer—and you won’t be able to tell them the truth.”

I didn’t answer. There was no answer I could think of. What could I say? I sat there, nodding. “Whoa,” I said finally. “You want to frame me for murder, put me in prison, and make everyone I know think I’m a criminal. That’s a really great offer. Is there a second choice? Like: you shoot me in the kneecap and leave me by the side of the road to die?”

Waterman gave a small snort of laughter in the dark. “Doesn’t sound like much fun, does it?”

“Any,” I said. “It doesn’t sound like
any
fun. But since you have the word
intelligence
in your agency, I’m guessing you have some reason for wanting me to do all this.”

“We do,” said Waterman. I heard him take a deep breath, as if he needed strength before he tried to explain this to me. “Your friend Alex was murdered by one of your teachers at school.”

“What?” I blurted out. Immediately, my mind went through a roster of my teachers. I couldn’t think of any one of them who would murder somebody. Okay, maybe Mrs. Truxell, the girl’s PE instructor . . . but no, not really, not even her. “Who?” I asked. “Who killed Alex?”

“Mr. Sherman. Your history teacher.”

“No! Come on!”

Waterman shrugged in the shadows.

“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “Sherman’s an idiot, but he’s not a killer.”

“Actually, I’m afraid you’ve got that backward, Charlie. He’s a killer, but he’s no idiot.”

I brought my hands to my face, confused. For a moment I felt that I was forgetting something important . . .

And then, I was in the dark again, looking through a sort of keyhole of light, looking in at my own body where it lay writhing in agony on the floor of the Panic Room.

They’re going to blow it up! They’re going to blow
me
up! I’ve got to get back there! I’ve got to stop it! I’ve got to get
out of this flashback!

For that one moment, I remembered my present situation, my present danger.

But the next second, as if I’d reached the end of some enormous elastic tether, I was snapped backward out of consciousness and hurled into the past again . . .

Back onto the seat of the dark limousine next to Waterman.

“Your history teacher is a member of an organization that’s dedicated to attacking this country in any way it can,” he was saying. “They call themselves the Homelanders. The group was begun by Islamo-fascists in the Middle East, but they’ve come here to recruit Americans who don’t like the way our country works and who want to join with them in fighting us.”

“Sherman . . . ?” I shook my head. Sherman and I had had our disagreements over the years, big disagreements about freedom and the founding ideals of our country— the stuff you talk about in history class. He always made fun of me in class, in fact, for being a patriot, for believing in the words of our Declaration of Independence that people are “created equal,” and “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Sherman didn’t believe in any Creator, for one thing, so he didn’t think there was anyone to endow us with rights. And he thought leaving people free to pursue their own ideas of happiness led to too much selfishness and unfairness in the world.

“Look,” I said, “I never agreed with Sherman about much, but I always figured it’s a free country, he’s entitled to his opinions.”

“He
is
entitled to his opinions,” Waterman said. “In fact, as far as I’m concerned, the Islamo-fascists are entitled to their opinions too. They’re just not entitled to force their opinions on the rest of us, or to kill and terrorize people who disagree with them. And Sherman’s not entitled to drive a knife into the chest of a seventeen-year-old boy because he decided he didn’t want to join with the Homelanders after all.”

“Alex?” I said. It was almost too much to take in. Not almost—it
was
too much to take in. “Alex was going to join them?”

“Sherman convinced Alex that he could somehow solve his personal problems by joining the Homelanders. And that was Alex’s plan until that night he talked to you. I don’t know what you said to him exactly, but we think it caused him to have second thoughts—and Sherman killed him to keep him from revealing the Homelanders’ existence—and maybe to protect himself from the consequences of his mistake in bringing Alex on board. The Homelanders aren’t that nice to people who make mistakes.”

I shook my head again, trying to get my mind to come to grips with this. “So Alex was going to join the terrorists, only then he didn’t, so Sherman killed him . . .”

“That’s it.”

“So you want to frame me for murder? I mean, where does that come in?”

Waterman shifted in his seat, turning to face me. “We think, if we play this just right, we can get you into the organization.”

“What? Me? You want me to become one of these Homelander terrorist guys?”

“As things stand, we could just arrest Sherman for murder. We might even be able to make a case against him. We might be able to pressure him into telling us what he knows. But the fact is, we already know what he knows—and it isn’t all that much. He’s been kept out of the centers of power and information because he hasn’t earned the trust of the high command. Losing Alex hasn’t helped his reputation with them either. That’s why he’d be eager to recruit someone like you . . .”

In spite of my shock at hearing all this, I actually laughed out loud. “Recruit me? To the Homelanders? Big fat hairy chance, man. Sherman knows better than to think he can recruit me to attack this country. I think this country is one of the best ideas human beings ever had . . .”

“Well, I think you’re right about that, Charlie. But I think you’re wrong about Sherman. In his efforts to please his masters, he’s been arguing that you’re the perfect recruit.”

“The per—Me? But . . . why?”

“Well, you’re a fighter, for one thing. And for another, you’re kind of the all-American boy, you know? With a face like yours, you can get in anywhere. And on top of that . . . well, Sherman’s theory is that you’re a true believer. Because you’re patriotic and religious, he figures you’re the type of person who follows along blindly, without thinking. He figures all he has to do is replace your patriotism and your faith in God with
his
beliefs and you’ll be willing to follow after him.”

“But that’s crazy! I don’t just believe in anything that comes along. I’ve thought a lot about the things I believe. It’s about people being free and . . .”

Waterman raised a hand. “You don’t have to explain it to me, son. We know all about your beliefs, Charlie. Your beliefs are exactly what we’re counting on. I’m just talking about what Sherman thinks. We feel if we can set up a scenario where it seems you have reason to feel bitter and disgruntled—like your being unfairly convicted of murder, for instance—it’ll give Sherman fresh motivation to approach you and win you over. And it’ll make your conversion believable to the people in charge.”

“Okay,” I said uncertainly. “I get that, I guess. So I’m unfairly convicted and Sherman recruits me. Then what?”

“Then you work your way into the organization. You go through their training, you get assigned to carry out a terrorist attack and find out about any other attacks that are being planned. Then you help us prevent the attacks and find the people in charge so we can bring them to justice.”

When Waterman was done, I sat in silence. I guess you could say I was dumbfounded. I mean, listen, I would do just about anything to protect this country, its freedom, its people. I already wanted to join the Air Force, and protect it from the sky. But this . . .

“Why can’t you just use one of your own people?” I said after a while. “I mean, you’re spies, right? This is what you do.”

“We’ve tried that. The Homelanders are too good, too sharp. We believe they even have people with access to government records. They see through our cover stories, they spot our agents. But someone like you. A teenager. Someone with no connection to us . . .”

“Yeah, I get it, I get it.”

“That’s why there’ll only be a small number of people— just me and a few others in the organization and one other outsider—who’ll know what’s going on, who’ll be able to prove your true purpose and identity.”

I shook my head as the whole picture finally made itself clear to me. I turned away. I stared out the window of the limousine.

“Look, you don’t have to give me an answer now,” Waterman went on. “And before you do answer, I want you to understand completely what I’m asking of you. You’ll be taken away from your family, your school, your friends, your girlfriend. They’ll all believe you were convicted of murder. They’ll believe you’re a fugitive who’s escaped from prison. They may even come to learn you’ve become a member of a group of terrorists. I can’t say how long it will be before you can come home and tell them the truth. It might take a month, six months, a year—I just don’t know. In the end, if you succeed, if you infiltrate the Homelanders, if you bring these people down before they can attack us, maybe you’ll be a hero. Maybe they’ll give you a parade in your hometown. But if you get caught, if the Homelanders expose you, kill you . . . Well, what we’re doing isn’t exactly legal, doesn’t exactly have the approval of all our higher-ups, you understand me? If it all goes wrong, we’ll never admit we know you, we’ll never tell anyone the truth. Everyone who loves you will go to his grave believing you betrayed your country.”

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.