Andrew Klavan - The last thing I remember

My eyes focused on the seat ahead of me. The grate holding me. The two men up front, the backs of their heads.

“Two more days,” they’d said.

Saturday.

Only one more day now. Saturday was tomorrow.

We’ll never get another shot at Yarrow.

One more day and they would assassinate the secretary of homeland security.

I stared at the back of Detective Rose’s head as the cruiser sped along the highway.

How could I explain it to him? How could I ever get him to believe me?

Seconds

I had to try.

“Detective Rose… ” I said.

Detective Rose shifted in the front seat, twisting around to look at me. I could see those sharp, cold eyes of his staring through the diamond spaces in the grate.

“Listen, West,” he said. He had to talk loudly so I could hear him over the radio. “I know you’re not stupid, right? You had an excellent grade point average in high school before you left all that behind and began your illustrious career as a murdering piece of garbage. So I know you got some brains in you.”

“Detective Rose, listen… ” I said.

“So when I say something to you, I expect you to understand me.”

“Detective…”

“And I’m saying something to you now. I’m saying to you: shut up. Is that unclear somehow? Well, let me explain myself further. Shut up or I’m gonna slug you. Got it?”

The driver gave another heavy chuckle.

“You want me to spell it for you too?” asked Detective Rose.

“They’re going to kill Richard Yarrow,” I said. “The guy they were talking about on the radio. The secretary of homeland security. They’re going to assassinate him.”

Detective Rose looked at the driver. The driver glanced over at him. I could see Detective Rose’s unpleasant, humorless smile through the grate. He reached over and turned off the radio. He turned those eyes on me again.

“What?” he said.

“They’re going to…”

“Who? Who’s going to kill the secretary of homeland security?”

“The men. The men in the woods.”

“Oh yeah,” said Detective Rose. His round face went up and down as he nodded. “The little men in the woods. I almost forgot about them. Well, relax, Charlie. Maybe they won’t kill him. Maybe they’ll just carry him off to their magic tree and bake him some cookies.”

This time, the driver laughed louder.

“It’s true!” I said. “You have to believe me. It’s all true. Where do you think I got these bruises, these burns? They captured me. I don’t know why. I can’t explain it. I can’t explain anything. I just know I woke up there and heard them talking. They said they’d never get another shot at Yarrow. They said two more days. That’s when Yarrow’s coming to meet the president. Don’t you see? They must be terrorists. They must be planning to kill him.”

Now Detective Rose turned to the driver. “What did I tell you?” he said.

The driver shook his head. “Amazing.”

“He’s good, isn’t he? He’s a good liar. I can almost forgive myself for believing him the first time.”

I saw a TV show once where this evil doctor declared this guy insane in order to have him locked up in a mental hospital. The guy tried to tell everyone he was sane, but because he was in a mental hospital, no one would believe him. They just thought he was saying he was sane because he was crazy. The guy got so frustrated trying to explain that he was sane that he nearly went crazy…

That’s pretty much what I felt like now.

I threw my head back against the seat, thumping it. I closed my eyes, trying to fight down my feeling of helplessness. What was I going to do? If I couldn’t convince him, Secretary Yarrow would die. I would spend the next twenty-four hours locked away, knowing what was going to happen, powerless to stop it. I couldn’t. I had to do something. Get away. Warn someone.

Find Waterman…

Something…

“Here,” said Detective Rose.

I felt the car glide over to the right. I opened my eyes. I looked out the window. There was a sign up ahead on the freeway. Winchester: Next Four Exits.

“We’re here already?” I said.

“Yeah, too bad,” said Detective Rose. “I was so enjoying our little chat.”

My heart started racing again. Here we were in Winchester already and I hadn’t come up with a plan. I had no idea how I would try to escape. Soon the chance would be past. I had to think of something.

I pressed my face to the window and looked out. I saw a long street with no people in it. Grim warehouses and abandoned brick buildings loomed on either side. I saw garbage in the gutter and paper blowing along the sidewalk. When I turned and looked through the windshield, I could see smokestacks rising up ahead.

The cruiser turned a corner. There was another street, not much different from the last. Old buildings with broken windows. Empty lots littered with papers and metal and cans. Three old men were gathered around a garbage can. There was fire coming out of the can, and the men were holding their hands out to the flames to warm their fingers. I could tell by their scraggly beards and their torn clothes that the men were homeless. They lifted their hollow eyes to watch the cruiser driving past.

Now, when I looked up ahead, I could see one building standing out from the others. The building looked new and shiny, a bright box of metal and glass in the midst of all that dull, dirty brick and cement.

“Is that it?” I said. “Is that the jail?”

No one answered, but I knew it was. We were only a block away. I was running out of time.

I scanned the distance, trying to see what was waiting for me up ahead. I wondered if it would be the same as it was outside the jail in Centerville. Would there be reporters? Crowds? Dozens of policemen? As far as I could see, the street looked quiet. The only person I saw was another homeless man shuffling by a deserted lot.

Detective Rose took out his cell phone. He muttered into it. I couldn’t hear what he said, but I figured he was telling the jail we were coming in.

Now the shiny metal-and-glass building was rising up over us on the left as we came near. There was a broad flight of stairs leading up to the line of glass doors at the entrance. I still couldn’t see any crowds or reporters anywhere. There were a lot of police cars parked out front, but most of them seemed to be empty. A patrolman did get out of one cruiser, but he trotted up the stairs and went inside without even glancing our way.

“There don’t seem to be as many people here as there were back in Centerville,” I said. I was trying to find out what to expect.

“Too bad,” said Detective Rose. “I guess your fifteen minutes of fame are over. You were just a little break between some pop star going into rehab and some movie actor committing suicide. The news cycle cycles on and you’re forgotten.”

He sounded like he was taunting me, like he thought I’d be sorry that I wasn’t in the news anymore. But I wasn’t sorry at all. The fewer people there were around, the more chance I’d have of making a break for it. Even as it was, the odds were heavily against me. I figured when the time came, I’d have only seconds to make my move before I was taken inside that building, seconds before they discovered my loose handcuffs and put me in another cell.

I could feel the fear of that moment rising in me now, an agony of suspense that flowed through me like a low and growing current of electricity. The cruiser was passing the jail on the left, moving along the base of the steps, past the row of police cars parked out front. Now the driver put on his turn signal. I saw there was an alley right next to the jail, a narrow corridor between the jail’s shiny metal wall and the blackened concrete of the parking garage next door.