HL 04-The Final Hour Read Online Free PDF Page A

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.”

CHAPTER FIVE
The White Room
     
    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