Andrew Klavan - The Final Hour

It might kill him. It might destroy his brain. Put him into a vegetative state for the rest of his life.

I drew a deep breath. A million people, I thought. More than twice the population of my hometown.

And there was something. Something. What was it? What had I seen or overheard in the compound, in the barracks?

I remembered Prince’s voice:

When we hit them again, so hard, right there, right where we hit them so hard before…

I remembered crouching beneath the barracks window with the unconscious guard slowly coming around.

The point is this. You can see here. The route is set. We have agents at the entrances and exits to ensure everything goes smoothly. This is the great and final mission of the Homelanders…

I felt my body go taut. “Wait,” I said.

I turned around. They were all looking at me. Rose and Mike. Milton One and Dodger Jim-and the crow-faced woman, she was looking at me too now.

“There is something,” I told them. “Only…”

“Only?” said Rose.

I looked at him helplessly. “I’m not sure what it is. When I was eavesdropping on the barracks, listening to Prince make his plans, he said to the others-to Waylon and Mr. Sherman-he said, ‘You can see here. The route is set.’”

Rose never showed much emotion, but he showed some now. At least, he licked his lips and took a half step toward me. For him, that was a sign of wild excitement.

“What did he mean, ‘See here’? See where?”

“That’s just it,” I said. “That’s why I got caught. I realized he must have been showing them something. A map or something. So I grabbed hold of the windowsill and chinned my way up so I could peek in.”

“And?” said Rose. “What did you see?”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. There was nothing to say. I shook my head.

“Come on, chucklehead,” said Mike. “There had to be something.”

I stared down at the floor. I thought back to the room inside the barracks. “I only saw it for a single second before the guard started to scream for help,” I murmured.

“Think, Charlie,” said Rose. “What did you see?”

“The room. Prince. Waylon. Sherman. The desk.” My head came up, fast. “The laptop! The laptop turned around to face the others. That must’ve been what he was showing them.”

“Did you see it? Did you see the screen?” said Rose.

I tried to think back, but in the end I could only spread my hands. “I saw it, but… it was so fast…”

There was another awful silence. Everyone looking at me. But I felt one stare more than the others.

I turned to her-to the crow-faced woman-the woman who had injected the drug that had sent me into paroxysms of agonizing pain-and into the past so that I could begin to recover my lost memories.

“I never knew your name,” I said. “Nobody ever told me.”

“Farber,” she said quietly. “Dr. Judith Farber.” She averted her eyes as if she couldn’t bear to look at me.

“Do you think it might work?” I asked her. “Do you think I could go back? To that specific moment. That specific memory.”

She couldn’t meet my eyes. “Early on, when we were first developing the drug,” she said, “there was some evidence that, with experience, you might be able to control it to some degree. Just like thinking back to a specific time, only…”

“Only more powerful,” I said, “because of the drug.”

She looked at me-forced herself to look at me, I think. She said, “I don’t know. I don’t know what would happen.” She looked around at the others as if she were appealing to them. “Nobody knows.”

No one answered her. No one said a word.

“If I could go back,” I told her. “If I could look into that room again… I might see the laptop again; I might see what I saw but can’t remember. It’s possible, isn’t it?”

“Oh, it’s possible,” said Dr. Farber. Her tone was almost desperate. She stared an appeal at Milton One and Dodger Jim. Then at Mike and Rose. Finally at me. “It’s possible, but…”

“But it might kill me. Or worse.”

She nodded. “Or worse. Yes.”

After that, nothing but silence all around. I turned back to the window. I stared into my own face again and through my reflection again into the darkness. I could say that I wasn’t afraid. I could say I trusted in God. And I did trust in God. But I was afraid too.

A million people, I thought.

I faced the others. Mike looked at me and I looked at Mike and I’m pretty sure I knew exactly what he was thinking: You do what you gotta do, chucklehead. You never surrender and you do what you have to do.

“I want to call Beth first,” I told them. “Just in case, you know. I want a chance to say good-bye.”

Mike and Milton One took me into a bedroom-another one of these elaborate bedrooms in this crazy house: with a four-poster bed all draped with heavy curtains and heavy curtains on the windows and tables everywhere cluttered with shiny knickknacks and chiming clocks.

Mike grabbed up one tableful of knickknacks in a single big armload. He carried them to the bed and dumped them with a ringing clatter on the lacy bedspread. Milton One set a laptop on the cleared table.

“I’ve got the signal scrambled through about three different servers,” he told me, “but I wouldn’t stay on with her more than ten minutes if I were you. The cops are looking for you and may be monitoring her line. And Prince will know you escaped. You’re the one person who might know enough to catch up to him, so even though he hasn’t got a lot of manpower left, he’s sure to be looking out for you, waiting for a chance to send someone after you. Like I said, I’ve got it fixed to confuse a trace, but if you stay on too long… Well, ten minutes tops.”

I nodded. Milton One walked out of the room. Mike hesitated.

“What?” I said.

My old sensei didn’t say anything. He just lifted his right fist-the karate sign of power. Then he covered it with his left hand-the karate sign of restraint. Then- holding his hands like that-he gave a short sharp bow in my direction: the karate token of respect.

Then he walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

I waited a few minutes. Just a few. I wanted to be sure my emotions were under control. There are people, I know, who say guys shouldn’t control their emotions, that they should just express them anytime they want. I don’t agree. There’s a time to be emotional, sure, but there’s also plenty of times when it’s good to keep your emotions in check. I wanted Beth to know I loved her, but I didn’t want her to see I was afraid because I didn’t want her to be afraid.

When I could, I pulled up some fancy French-looking chair and sat down in front of the laptop. I remembered the system my pal Josh had set up for communications. I used it now.

A long tone came out of the laptop’s speakers. Then there was Beth’s voice:

“Charlie?”

It was another second or two before the video came on. Then there she was, looking into the screen; her hair falling in curls around her cheeks made her look like one of those cameos my mother sometimes wears. Her blue eyes were gazing right at me, an expectant smile on her lips. Then I guess she saw me at about the same time I saw her, because she kind of gave a little gasp and put her hands over her mouth.

I know I should have been glad to see her. All this time, every day, every minute, I’d missed her more than I could even bear to think about. So I should’ve been glad. But I wasn’t. Or, that is, I felt a weird mix of soaring gladness and plunging sorrow all at the same time. The sight of her made my heart clench inside me because I had a very strong feeling that I was never going to see her again.