“We don’t have much choice. One way or another, we’ve got to act.”
That last part came to me clearly. I was pretty sure it was Waterman speaking. I recognized the distinctive southern twang I’d heard in the alley.
Somebody answered him, but the voice was muffled.
Then Waterman said, “No. And it isn’t going to be pretty finding out. But I don’t see what other options we have. They’re close. Very close. We can’t just wait and hope for the best.”
This time, the answering voice was clearer: “He may still be worth something to us as he is.” I guessed it was the guy in the Dodgers cap speaking.
“It’s gone too far for that, Jim,” said Waterman. “As he is, he can only be a liability.”
Again, there was an answer I couldn’t hear.
I licked my dry lips, staring into the darkness of the car’s trunk. Were they talking about me? Were they deciding what to do with me? I thought they probably were.
Then I heard Waterman say flatly, “Well, then we’ve got to get rid of him.”
There was another jolt, another flash of pain through my skull.
We’ve got to get rid of him.
That didn’t sound good at all.
Now I could feel the car changing direction, slowing. We were getting off the highway. I figured we must be approaching our destination. Was this the place where they were going to get rid of me?
“I don’t know,” the second speaker-Jim-began. “Either way, I think we have some kind of responsibility-”
“No,” said Waterman, cutting him off. “This was part of the deal. We knew it would be like this from the beginning.”
After that, the voices stopped for a while. I shifted in the car again. I felt around me, trying to find some way to get the trunk open or maybe some weapon I might be able to use: a tire iron maybe. But there was nothing. The trunk’s latch was hidden inside the body of the car. And the only objects around me were those insulated wires, which I now realized were a pair of jumper cables. Not much help.
I’d have to wait and take my chances. They might just open up the trunk and shoot me, but they might take me out first, take me somewhere secluded. Sensei Mike had trained me well in karate. I was a good fighter, a black belt. There might be a chance, a small chance, I could break away from these guys and run for it.
So I said a prayer for calm and for courage and I waited and, while I waited, I tried to think.
Who were they? Who was Waterman? Was he one of the Homelanders? I had no way of knowing. That time I’d been arrested, someone had whispered in my ear that I should “find Waterman,” but I didn’t know who the whisperer was-a friend or an enemy? If all Waterman wanted was to “get rid” of me, why hadn’t he just done it in the alley? Why hadn’t he just shot me for real and left me there?
Maybe they need something, I thought. Maybe they think I have some important piece of information.
It isn’t going to be pretty finding out.
That didn’t sound so good either. Were they going to torture me? Did my life depend on the answers I gave them? Didn’t they understand? I didn’t know what had happened. I didn’t remember.
The car went on and on. I felt another turn. The road grew bumpier. I was jostled back and forth roughly in the trunk. It felt like we were on a dirt road. We were heading away from traffic, away from people.
Now I heard the voices in the car start up again. They were easier to hear than before because the car had slowed down to deal with the rough road.
“Where do you want to do this?” said the voice I now knew as Jim.
“Might as well use the Panic Room. That way, we can be sure no one hears the screaming.”
Great. Screaming. Screaming was never a positive. And Waterman’s tone when he talked about it was chillingly cool and casual. As if torturing me and getting rid of me was just another piece of business that had to be taken care of.
There was a brief silence, then the guy called Jim said, “Poor kid.”
“Like I said,” Waterman drawled, “this was the deal from the beginning.”
“Yeah. Still. Poor kid.”
My stomach turned. I was scared, I don’t mind saying. I’d escaped from the Homelanders. I’d escaped from the police. But something about these guys was different. They sounded so relaxed, so professional. Their tone sapped my confidence, made me feel there was no chance I could fight my way out of this.
The car slowed. I felt a slight bump as if the car were lifting over a threshold. The car stopped. The engine died.
I heard the doors opening. I held my breath. I heard footsteps.
Then suddenly, Waterman’s voice sounded right nearby, right outside the trunk.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said.
The trunk came open.
CHAPTER THREE
Milton Two After such a long time in the darkness, I had to blink and squint in the pale light of evening before I could see anything. Then I saw Waterman, silhouetted by the light, standing above me holding the lid of the car trunk. Jim- the man in the Dodgers cap-was standing just behind him, his hands shoved into his overcoat pockets.
“Come on, Charlie,” Waterman said grimly. “Let’s go.”
He stepped back. I climbed slowly out of the trunk, my limbs stiff and aching after the long confinement.
“Where are we?” I said. “Where are you taking me?”
“Sorry,” said Waterman. “You don’t get any questions. We ask; you answer. That’s how it’s going to work.”
I stood up, rubbing my legs to bring them back to life. I looked around, blinking, dazed.
We were in an old barn of dried-out brown wood. The fading daylight poured through the open bay doors. Strips of light came in between the cracks in the ancient wallboards. Farm tools hung on nails in the boards: a pitchfork, a shovel, a pair of gardening shears. My eyes went over them as I tried to think of some way to get my hands on something I could use as a weapon.
Waterman seemed to read my mind. “Don’t even think about it, son. I know you’re a tough guy. But you’re not tough enough. This is already going to be unpleasant. Don’t make it any harder on yourself than it has to be.”
I eyed my two captors. Waterman looked like he was fifty or so. Dodger Jim looked somewhat younger, not much. But both of them looked like they were hard characters, very confident and experienced. It was a pretty good bet that Dodger Jim was holding a gun in his overcoat pocket too, and it might not be a tranquilizer gun this time. If I was going to try to escape, this wasn’t the time. I was going to have to take them when they were off guard in order to have even half a chance.
Waterman glanced over his shoulder, as if he was afraid someone might be watching us. Outside the barn door I couldn’t see anything but forest.
“All right,” he said. He slammed the trunk. “We can’t just stand around here. Let’s get moving.”
Dodger Jim stepped aside and gave an ironic wave of his hand toward the barn door: right this way, sir. I stepped out into a deep forest that was fading into shadow with the coming of night. It was cold here, colder than in the city, colder with every moment the light grew dimmer. My breath frosted in front of me, and I could feel the chill eating at my skin through my fleece.
Waterman closed the barn door and then he and Dodger Jim came up, one on either side of me. There was a trail going off in three directions. We took the path to the right.
Sometimes we walked together. More often, the trail was too narrow and Waterman led the way with me in the middle and Dodger Jim behind me. No chance to make a break.
At first, I kept my mouth shut. I knew Waterman didn’t want me asking questions. But then I thought: What do I care what he wants? I needed to distract these guys so I could get my chance to strike.
So I asked: “Hey, who are you people anyway?”
Waterman said nothing.
I tried again. “I mean, are you the good guys or the bad guys?”
Waterman snorted. “Doesn’t that depend whose side you’re on?”
The answer chilled me. I’d heard too much of that kind of talk lately. Nothing is really good or bad, it’s all a matter of perspective, it’s all a matter of which culture you come from, a matter of what you’ve been taught and what you happen to believe. It sounded like Mr. Sherman, a history teacher of mine who’d turned out to be one of the Homelanders. It was just the sort of thing he used to say.