Andrew Klavan: The Final Hour

“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.

“So you’re going to blow people up until they’re righteous,” I said-but I smiled as I said it, as if I were joking.

Prince flashed those pearly teeth again, moving back to his chair. Standing behind it, his hands on the high back as he swiveled it this way and that meditatively.

“Something like that,” he said. “Something very much like that, in fact. And the question is: Are you going to help us? We’ll have to doctor you up a little so you don’t look too much like your wanted posters, but then, with a face like yours, with an all-American demeanor like yours, with your knowledge of the customs of the country, you could get into a lot of places I might not. You could help us a lot, Charlie, if you wanted to. Do you want to?”

I let a long moment go by, but there was never any question what my answer would be. Prince and I both knew he would kill me if I said no. He would kill me if I said yes and he didn’t believe I meant it. But I had already told Sherman I would join the group. That’s why they’d busted me out in the first place.

So I nodded quickly. “Sure,” I said. “Count me in.”

The moment I spoke those words, the scene seemed to melt away from around me. It was as if Prince and the fancy room and the strange house had all been sculpted out of ice and now the heat had risen under them and they were melting, pouring down into nothingness.

I heard a buzzer. A loud clanking sound… Suddenly I was back in Abingdon, back in my cell.

My heart sank as I realized where I was: on the cot, curled up on the thin mattress. My body ached and stung all over, not just from the beating I’d gotten from Dunbar but from the spasms of the memory attack. I felt as if someone had gone through my insides with a staple gun. Not a great feeling if you’ve never tried it.

I blinked into the present, dazed and confused. There was a dark form hanging over me. I squinted, trying to bring the form into focus. It took me a minute before I saw that it was a guard.

“Get up, West,” he commanded. “You have a visitor.”

I blinked, licking my dry lips. I could barely understand what he was saying. “A visitor…?” I murmured hoarsely. “Is it Saturday?”

“Get up!” he said again. He wasn’t much of a conversationalist.

I uncurled slowly, each motion sending pain through the core of my body.

“Come on, come on!” said the guard.

He gripped my arm and yanked me to my feet. The sudden movement sent a sharp pain shooting through my head. My hand went up and I felt the egg-sized bump there. That was where Dunbar had smacked me into the floor.

“Too bad about that fall you took,” the guard said, smirking.

“Yeah,” I said through my fingers. “Next time, I’ll watch where I’m going. Walked right into Dunbar’s fist.”

The guard stopped smirking. “I wouldn’t mention that to anyone if I were you. Not unless you want to go back to the Outbuilding.”

“Whatever,” I said. I tried to play it tough, but the very mention of the Outbuilding made me clutch with fear. “Where’s my visitor?”

He jerked his head toward the open door. “Let’s go.”

He herded me out of the cell and along the second tier of cells and down the stairs. We went past a Plexiglas module where a guard sat at a control desk surrounded by computers and security monitors. There was an iron door blocking the way ahead.

The guard with me nodded at the guard in the module. There was a loud buzz and the iron door slid open.

We went through the door and down a faceless concrete hallway. There were more doors, white doors in the white wall, almost invisible. We stopped in front of one of them. The guard unlocked it with a key and pulled it open. He tilted his head for me to go inside.

I stepped through and he slammed the door behind me. I heard the key turn again, locking me inside.

I looked around. There wasn’t much to see. It was a small, cramped white room. There were no windows, no two-way mirrors, just the rough painted surface of the blank, white cinder-block walls. There was a white table bolted to the floor, and two plastic white chairs, one on either side.

For a minute or two, I just stood there, staring stupidly at all that whiteness. My head was still a little messed up. The memories from my attack still clung to me. The scene had been so real, it was so much as if I were there, right there. It hurt to be back here again, back in this prison. Any place would have been better.

I heard the lock on the white door snap again. The door opened.

I turned and saw Detective Rose step into the room.

Man, I can’t tell you what that was like. At the sight of him, I felt my sore, battered body go weak with relief. I couldn’t remember the last time I was so happy to see anyone.

“Rose!” I blurted out. “Dude! Oh, man, it’s about time you showed up!”

Rose didn’t answer. His face was blank, expressionless. But then he never was much in the expressing-himself department. He was a black guy with a round face and flat features, a thin mustache and smart, steady eyes. He rarely smiled. He rarely even grimaced. Even his suits seemed to have no particular color. He was always all business.

I saw his eyes go over me, pausing on the cuts and bruises. But all he said was, “Sit down, Charlie.”

I lowered myself painfully into one of the white chairs. Rose didn’t sit down in the other one. He put his foot up on its seat. He rested his arm on his raised knee. He looked down at me-studied me-for a long time.

“What happened to you?”

“I fell down,” I said.

He snorted. “You fell down, huh.”

“I fell down on a sadistic guard.”

“That was clumsy of you.”

“Tell me about it.” I looked up at him, searching his eyes for something, some kind of hope. I couldn’t stand the suspense. “So,” I said to him. “Are you gonna get me out of here or what?”

“What’s the matter, Charlie? Don’t you like prison?”

I wanted to come up with a snappy answer, but I wasn’t feeling very snappy. “It’s bad,” I admitted. “I’m trying to stay strong in here, you know? But I’ll tell you the truth, Rose: It’s really, really bad.”

I thought I saw a trace of sympathy rise in Rose’s eyes, but it was tough to tell. He just nodded. “That’s the way it works, Charlie. You put a lot of bad guys together in the same place, you end up with a pretty bad place.”

“Are you talking about the inmates or the guards? Because in here, it’s tough to tell the difference.”