It was sitting in plain sight, right there on one of the workstations. It was a large cube made of several blocks of some kind of brown putty. Explosives. I’d seen stuff like that on TV. There was a device and wires wrapped around the putty block. There was a timer there with red numbers quickly blinking away.
Six minutes and fifteen seconds left before the bomb exploded; 6:14… 6:13… The numbers clicked swiftly down.
That was the first thing I saw. The next thing I saw was the Homelanders.
A movement caught my eye. I turned toward it. Something was moving on one of the monitors hanging on the wall. It must have been displaying the video readout from a security camera posted in the ruins above.
I could see by the video that the dawn was breaking outside now. There was a clear view on the monitor of some of the broken pillars and ruined buildings standing in the morning mist. I could see the Homelanders moving among them. Searching through them.
They were searching, I knew, for me.
I turned from monitor to monitor. Each one showed a different portion of the scene outside. Each one showed different ruined buildings, different columns and empty arches and patches of fog snaking through them, twining around them. Each monitor also showed one of the Homelanders.
I counted six of them altogether. Each one carried a machine gun. They moved slowly through the ruins, their heads turning this way and that, their eyes scanning the area.
All except one. One stood still. He held his gun with its butt propped on his hip, the barrel pointed to the sky. I recognized the place where he was standing. He was right outside the brick cylinder that protected the entry. He was guarding the only way out of here. He was making sure I didn’t escape.
So down here, the bomb was ticking-six minutes and one second now… 6:00… 5:59… 5:58…
And up there, the Homelanders were patrolling and guarding the way out.
If I stayed in the bunker, I’d be blown up. If I tried to leave, I’d be shot.
I looked at the bomb on the table again. For a moment I wondered if maybe I could just disconnect the wires and defuse it. But somewhere in the bottom of my mind was the absolute certainty that the device was sensitive to the touch. Maybe it was something I knew from my training with the Homelanders. But however I knew it, I felt very sure if I even touched the device, it would go off then and there.
So that was what I saw: first the bomb… then the Homelanders on the monitors patrolling the ruins outside… And then…
Then I turned to look around the room, to search for another way out or for a tool or weapon I could use in a fight-and I saw something else.
On the threshold of the doorway into the next room, there was a puddle of blood.
The breath came out of me with a trembling “Oh!” I had a terrible feeling I knew what I would see if I went into that room.
But I had to go. I had to see. I had to know what was there.
I started moving. As I came closer, I saw a trail of blood leading away from the puddle, leading into the other room.
And then I came closer and I saw a hand-one outstretched hand lying on the floor.
And I came closer. Closer to the door. I saw the arm attached to the hand. I reached the doorway and looked in.
That’s when I saw the body.
It was Waterman.
He was lying on his face in the middle of the floor of a room that looked like a small lounge. One arm was tucked under his torso. The other was outstretched, the hand pointing to the doorway through which I’d just come. Beneath his head, there was another pool of blood.
I rushed to him. I knelt beside him. I felt his neck for a pulse. There was none.
He was dead.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Time Running Out The world seemed to spin around me. I thought the jolt was going to overwhelm me. Waterman dead. Executed by the Homelanders while I lay unconscious and undiscovered in the Panic Room.
And all the others? Gone. Escaped? Dead? I didn’t know.
I stood up and staggered back to the door. I leaned heavily against the frame.
Waterman was dead. My contact. My ally. The only ally whose name I knew. Even if I managed to get out of this death trap alive, where would I go now? Who would I turn to for help?
A wave of hopelessness washed over me. I felt as if all my strength had drained away. For a second or two, I actually thought I wouldn’t be able to move again.
But there was no time for that. No time to indulge that sort of emotion. The bomb was ticking. I had to keep going, had to. Waterman was dead. All right. That’s the way it was. He had died trying to protect America from its enemies-trying to protect liberty from its enemies. A lot of people have died that way in a lot of places over the years. God knows their names-every one of them-I believe that-but they’re beyond my help. The only thing I could do was go on, never give in, keep fighting the fight they fought.
I pushed off the door. I forced down my dizziness and sickness. I felt something flaring up inside me, a new heat, a new fire of determination. I knew I had only minutes to live. But I was going to use every one of them. I was going to do everything I could to get out of here, to find help, to find someone who would believe me when I told them about the Homelanders, to find someone who would help me stop them, help me bring them down.
A new bolt of pain went through my head, and for a second I was afraid another memory attack would knock me over. I couldn’t let that happen. I massaged my brow with my fingers, trying to think. My eyes went to Waterman’s body one more time. The pool of blood. The outstretched hand… I wondered…
As much as he could, Waterman had tried to watch out for me, to think of me and my safety. He had brought me to this bunker in the hopes of evading the Home-landers. He had hidden me in the Panic Room so I wouldn’t be discovered during the memory attacks. He had left me the symbol so I could escape if he was captured or killed. And now…
I looked at the pool of blood on the floor. The trail of blood leading into the room. The second pool beneath Waterman’s head.
He had been shot in the doorway. He had struggled to get into the room. He had managed to position himself before he was shot again-position himself with his hand outstretched, pointing…
I turned and followed the direction of Waterman’s hand. He was pointing to the slim section of wall beside the doorway. That’s all it was, a slim section of wall between the door and a metal shelf. Blank wall.
I went to it. I raised my palm. I traced the shape of the house against the blank wall. Instantly, there was the sound of a motor. A panel slid back. A small panel this time. A hidden cache about the size of a paperback book.
I reached into the cache and at once my hand touched a metal object. My fingers closed over it. I drew it out.
I knew what it was as soon as I saw it. It was the little gizmo Milton One had been holding when I first came into the compound. The little control panel the size and shape of an iPhone. It was the thing Milton One had used to control Milton Two, that flying security robot that had blasted me when I tried to escape from Waterman and Dodger Jim.
I looked from the little device back to Waterman’s body where it lay on the floor.
“Thanks,” I whispered to him.
The Homelanders had killed him-and now they were trying to kill me, to make sure there was no one left who could stop them.
Well, they could try. But at least now I had a weapon. Waterman had left me a weapon.
And I wasn’t going down without a fight.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Battle Begins Four minutes thirty-three seconds… 4:32… 4:31…
I was glad to get out of that room of death. But the moment I moved back to the main part of the bunker, I saw the bomb again and the seconds ticking away. I stood in front of the device, holding the small controller to Milton Two in my hand. Four minutes twenty-five seconds now… So little time.