“That’s right. Not for long, though. The Homelanders have already arranged for your escape. And we’ve already arranged for you to get away with it.”
I nodded. My heart was beating hard.
“Frightened?” the man asked me.
I shrugged. I guess I was frightened a little. And sad too-sad about my mom and all the pain I was putting her through. But there was something else as well. I was excited. I was ready for the mission to begin, ready for the fight to begin, ready to do what I had been called to do.
“I’ll be all right,” I told the shadowy man.
The man’s voice grew grim. “You’re going into a dangerous world, Charlie. A world full of twisted people with twisted philosophies. They will try to use you to commit any atrocity they can. And if, for even a second, they suspect you’re not completely on their side, they will kill you without a second thought.”
I put my hands in my pockets, lifting my shoulders around my ears. “I know all that. I’m ready.”
I could feel the man smile in the darkness. “I’m sure you are. You’re a special guy, Charlie. That’s why we came to you in the first place.” He stepped toward me. Again, I strained against the shadows, trying to see him. I could just make out the outline of his features. “And now, before they take you away, there’s one last thing I have to tell you. A technician is going to come to you in your cell. He’s going to install a device inside your mouth. The device can be activated by a sound code, which he’ll teach you. When the device is activated, it will release a chemical for you to swallow…”
I stared at him. “What do you mean? Like a suicide pill? In case I get captured and tortured or something?”
“It is in case you get captured and tortured. And it is a pill of sorts. But it won’t kill you. We knew you wouldn’t use something like that.”
“That’s right. I don’t do suicide.”
“Fair enough. But what this pill will do is wipe out your memory. That way, no matter what happens, you won’t be able to reveal anything about us, the people who sent you, the organization we represent.”
I shook my head, trying to understand. “If I activate this device and swallow this stuff, I’ll lose my memory? I won’t know who I am?”
“No, no, it shouldn’t affect your long-term memory. You’ll still know who you are. You’ll remember most of your life. We’re not sure, in fact, just how much of your memory will be erased. The drug is still experimental. But we figure about a year or two of your past will disappear. The point is: you won’t remember being sent on this mission or who sent you.”
I just stood there in the shadows, thinking about it. A year or two of my life, gone. All the stuff that had happened to me. Beth… “Will the memories be erased forever?” I asked.
He gave a small, sad laugh. “To be honest, Charlie, if you find yourself in a situation where you need to use this thing, it’s not likely you’ll live much longer, so I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“Yeah, I see what you mean.”
“But, just as a point of information? If you do get caught and you do get tortured and you do swallow this chemical and then, somehow, against all odds, you manage to survive and find your way back to us… Well, in that very unlikely series of events, we have an experimental antidote to this drug as well. I would say there’s a good chance, under those unlikely circumstances, that you’ll be able to restore most of the memory that was lost.”
I thought about it some more. Then I nodded.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s roll.”
Then there was one of those sudden shifts in scenery that you get in dreams. I was no longer in the thorny maze. I was back in the courtroom. The bailiffs had my hands pinned behind my back. They were just closing the cuffs around my wrists. I was calling out to my crying mother.
“It’s gonna be all right, Mom. Don’t be afraid. Everything is going to be all right, I swear. Never be afraid.”
The judge’s gavel was pound-pound-pounding on the bench.
“The court will come to order!” he said loudly.
I cast a last look back at the people in the gallery-at my mom, at my dad with his arms around her, his face grief-stricken; at Beth, trying so hard to keep from crying as she showed me an encouraging smile; at my friends, Josh and Rick and Miler, tapping their chests with their fists to let me know they were still with me in their hearts-everything seemed to fall away beneath that steady pound, pound, pound of the judge’s gavel…
Which now became another pounding, a different sort of pounding, somewhere nearby.
My eyes snapped open. I was awake. My gaze roamed over the white ceiling above me. Something was different. I was more clearheaded. I was covered in cold sweat.
My fever had broken.
I licked my dry lips. I turned my head on the pillow to look around. I was in a small bedroom. I was lying on a single bed against one wall. A woman-the same woman who had caught me after I’d broken into her house-was seated on a wooden chair by my bedside. She was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans now. She looked tired. She smiled at me. I tried to smile back.
The pounding…
Even though I was awake, the pounding from my dream continued. I realized now: It was not the judge’s gavel. It was someone knocking on the door in a nearby room.
The woman gave a sigh and pushed out of her chair to her feet. Instinctively, I reached for her.
“Ma’am…,” I said weakly.
“It’s all right,” she said softly. “I’m just going to go see who’s at the door.”
I let my hand fall back onto the thin blanket on top of me. I lay where I was and watched her move out of the room.
The pounding continued. I heard the woman call out, “All right, all right, I’m coming.”
I heard Sport add his opinion with a short, sharp bark.
In the next several seconds as she crossed to her front door, my eyes traveled around the little room. It was bare, stark. Just the bed, the chair, a dresser with some framed photographs on it. No window. No pictures on the wall, just peeling old-fashioned wallpaper with purple flowers. There was a bowl of water on a small table by the woman’s chair. There was a washcloth in the bowl-the cloth she’d been using to keep me cool. There was a bottle of aspirin and a couple of empty juice cartons on the floor too. I guess she’d been giving me aspirin and juice to keep me going.
About a million questions were flashing through my mind. How long had I been here? Hours? Days? How long had I been feverish and hallucinating, lying helpless while this woman I’d never met sat beside me and cared for me? Had I said anything to her? Had I spoken in my sleep? Had I given myself away…?
The pounding stopped. I heard the door open. I heard the woman’s voice again, “Down, Sport,” she said. Then she said, “Yes?”
“Hello, ma’am,” a man answered her. With a jolt of fear, I recognized the voice just a second before he said, “My name is Detective Rose. I’m with the police.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Rose The words went through me like an electric shock. Rose! Here! Had the woman asked him to come? Had I revealed something in my fevered sleep that had caused her to call the police? Or maybe she just called them because I’d broken into her house. Or maybe she’d just seen my picture on the news and recognized me. All these possibilities crowded into my mind when I heard his voice.
But wait. Now I heard her answer him: “Yes, Detective? How can I help you?” So maybe she hadn’t called him at all. I shook my head, trying to clear it, trying to figure things out.
“I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am. A fugitive escaped from the police near here yesterday. We’ve been searching the woods for him, but our dogs seem to feel he took to the road and possibly came this way.”
“A fugitive?” the woman said. “Oh, my.”
“Yes, ma’am. I don’t mean to frighten you, but he’s a convicted murderer. Considered very dangerous.”
“Well, I’m glad you don’t mean to frighten me, but you’re doing a very good job of it anyway.”
I started to sit up in bed, but weakness overcame me and I fell back. I wasn’t sure what I was planning anyway. I mean, I wanted to escape, but where could I go? I was wearing nothing but my boxer shorts and T-shirt. Even if I could endure the mountain cold in my underwear, there was no window to climb out of. If I tried to leave the room through the door, Rose would spot me in a second. Still, I couldn’t just lie there and wait for the inevitable…