The Truth of the Matter Read Online Free PDF Page A

skilled. Civilians should not approach him, even if they’re armed. I can’t emphasize this enough. This man is vicious. He’s already been convicted of one murder, and now we have every reason to believe he’s committed a second.”
    “What?” I said.
    I was so taken aback that I didn’t even notice my new surroundings. I just went on staring at the television monitor as Detective Rose’s face was replaced by a snapshot of Mr. Sherman, my old history teacher. Recently, I had discovered that it was Sherman who had recruited me to join the Homelanders. He was the one who had killed Alex Hauser when Alex tried to leave the organization. Then he had framed me for the murder in order to make me angry at American injustice so I would sign on with him and his Islamo-fascist allies to attack the country.
    I knew that Sherman was in trouble with the Homelanders. Their leader, a man who called himself Prince, felt that when Sherman had recruited me, he had brought a traitor into the ranks. Sherman had tried to capture me at gunpoint in order to prove himself to Prince. I had knocked him out—knocked him out, yes, but I hadn’t killed him. He was alive the last time I saw him.
    Apparently, he was not alive anymore.
    “The gruesome remains of the history teacher were found in an abandoned house at the outskirts of the little city,” a newswoman’s voice was saying. Sherman’s face faded out and was replaced by a picture of the old haunted McKenzie mansion where I had hidden out the last time I was home. Was it only a couple of weeks ago? The newswoman went on, “Police say Sherman was tortured before he was killed.”
    The images disappeared as the monitor went blank.
    “That was on the news about forty-five minutes ago.”
    I looked down at the voice. I saw I was in a long, low-ceilinged cellar of a room with white plaster walls and a couple of doors leading off into other rooms. The fluorescent lighting gave the room a bright, cold, sterile feeling. The place was packed with equipment. There were workstations along the walls with laptops set up on them. There were several monitors hanging up high on the walls. Each monitor had pictures broken up into several little squares, as if it was bringing in several video feeds at once. Each laptop had readouts working on the screen. I was too dazed and confused to take it all in.
    “They’re warning people that he could be heading for Manhattan. They seem to be hot on his trail.”
    The guy who was speaking was a young man, American of Asian descent. He was trim with a squarish head, a strangely cheerful face—it seemed strange under the circumstances anyway. He was dressed in a shirt and tie, but no jacket. He was sitting at one of the workstations, one of the laptops. He was holding a small rectangular object in one hand. At first, I thought it was an iPhone.
    “This is Milton One,” said Waterman with his ironic drawl. “The inventor and operator of Milton Two.”
    Milton One held up the iPhone-thing and waggled it around. I could see a video readout on it. The little gadget was the control for the security drone upstairs.
    “Sorry to blast you, kid,” he said merrily. “But it sure was fun. I’ve been dying to try this thing out under battle conditions.”
    With that reminder, the pain of the burn on my wrist came back to me. I rubbed the spot.
    “Glad to be of service,” I muttered.
    Now, hearing the conversation, a woman came into the room, entering a step through the doorway to my right. She was spindly and crow-faced with black hair streaked with gray, pulled back tight. She had hard brown eyes empty of emotion. She had a nasty scowl plastered on her face.
    “Get ready,” Waterman told her.
    She nodded once and disappeared through the doorway again without a word.
    Now Waterman turned his attention back to me. “You heard Rose, Charlie. The police are saying you killed Sherman now.”
    “I didn’t kill him,” I said angrily. I was frustrated by the