Camouflage (15 page)

The call was transferred and he repeated his request, eyes fixed on his watch, heart racing. Verity stood nearby, eyes connecting with his, curious.

“Officer Dougherty's not due in until four,” a woman's voice said. “Would you like to leave a message?”

No good; it would be too late. A knob of tears grew in his throat. “Turn off the TV!” he wanted to scream, because the voices made it hard to think. But it wasn't his home.

“Wait! Just a minute!” the woman said. “I think he's just coming in. Yeah! Dougherty, phone for you! Pick up on three!”

“Brian, listen!” Kyle said, the words spilling out in a breathless rush. “My father . . .” He swallowed the hard lump that threatened to close his throat. “My father's militia has planted a bomb in a black van. I don't know the license.”

“Where, Kyle?”

“In Lansing. The underground parking lot of the federal building!” A sob broke out and Verity pushed a fist against her mouth.

“You safe?”

“Yeah.” He gulped air and tried again. “It's got a timer. Should go off in . . .” He checked his watch. “In eighteen minutes! Brian! What should I do? Can
you
do anything? Can you stop it?” The futility of this call suddenly hit him. What could Brian do from two thousand miles away?

“I don't know, but I'll try. Soon as I hang up, dial nine-one-one. I'll call the FBI. Got that?”

“But I can't call nine-one-one! The sheriff's in on this. They'll contact him!”

“Call anyway! I'll follow up. And hurry!” Brian hung up.

“Please, Verity, turn down the TV!” Kyle begged, desperate now. He glanced out the window as he punched the buttons for 911. A car cruised slowly by. “Verity!” he cried. “Whose car is that?”

She rushed to the window from the TV. “I don't know. Looks like—yes—the sheriff.”

“Oh!” A scared pulse raced down his arms and legs.

“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?” a voice answered.

In a frantic tumble of words, he repeated what he'd told Brian.

“What is your name, please?”

He had the terrible feeling that the 911 operator didn't believe him, that he thought him just a kid making a prank call.

“My name doesn't matter!” he screamed. If he gave his name his dad would get caught! “Believe me, please! The bomb's going off in fifteen minutes! You've got to find it! Or . . . or . . .” He couldn't finish because his throat was so tight.

“How do you know?” the man persisted.

“Because I was with the people who left it!”

The cruising car returned, slowed, and parked in front of the house. His father and Sheriff Bray leaped out and ran to the front door.

“Listen! Do something!” he commanded, sounding just like his father. “The van's a rental! I don't know the license, but . . . but . . .” He suddenly remembered an important detail. “It's from Jerry's Rent-a-Car . . .”

“What is your name, please?” the 911 operator demanded.

If they wouldn't do anything without a name, he had to give it. “Klinger, Kyle Klinger!” he said, hating himself for the betrayal. “My father's the one who put the bomb there!”

“We'll look into it.”

There was a loud hammering at the front door. Charley ran out of the room calling, “I'll get it!”

“No!” Verity screamed, running to stop her.

With a groan of relief, he hung up just as he heard Verity say, “I'm sorry, Mr. Klinger. Kyle's not here.”

“Sure he is!” Charley contradicted. “He's in the kitchen.”

“Charley!” Verity cried. “I'm sorry, sir. He was here, but you just missed him.”

“We'll just have a look!” Sheriff Bray said.

Kyle scanned the room for somewhere to hide, and his eyes rested briefly on the television screen. His pulse leaped. An agitated newsman, wearing earphones, was speaking. Kyle turned up the sound . . . government employees in the Lansing Federal Building are being evacuated because of a bomb threat, which came in just moments ago. It is believed the threat is real.” The newsman paused, pressed his earphone tighter, listened, and then said, “We go now to Alison Sayers, who was on assignment at the federal building when the threat came in.”

“That's right, John!” the pretty reporter said. Kyle recognized the street where the TV camera crew had set up, a block from the federal building. “As you can see, terrified employees are pouring out of the building where more than three hundred people work. Can they all get out before the bomb goes off?” Sirens sounded in the distance.

“Have they found the device, Alison?” the man at the TV news studio asked.

“We're not sure, John. A bomb squad has just gone into the underground parking structure. They're looking for a mystery van, supposedly loaded with explosives. But we don't know if they've found it or if . . .”

Sheriff Bray and his father burst into the kitchen, followed by Verity and her sister.

“What are you up to?” his father barked. “What have you done?”

“Look!” Kyle's eyes welled with tears as he pointed to the TV. People were running away from the federal building, looking back over their shoulders.

“Oh . . . oh my god!” the anchorwoman cried, throwing her hand over her mouth. The screen suddenly filled with a huge explosion. The federal building heaved upward then, almost in slow motion, cascaded down in a torrent of concrete, glass, and debris.

Verity screamed.

“Hot-diggety-dog!” Sheriff Bray said. “The kid didn't stop it. Come on. Let's get out of here. They'll be looking for you.”

“Was it you who called them?” his father demanded, grabbing Kyle roughly. “What did you tell them? Answer me! Now!”

“I told them you did it!”

His father slapped Kyle hard across the face. “I ought to kill you!”

“Don't hurt him! Leave him alone!” Verity begged, yanking on his father's arm.

Kyle pressed a hand against the burning cheek. “I had to, Dad, I had to.”

“My own flesh and blood! Damn you! You're in this, too! You're an accessory! You know that, don't you?”

Sheriff Bray pulled at his father's arm. “Ed! Let's go!”

“Coming?” His father called over his shoulder as he started to the door.

“No,” Kyle said.

“Then you're a fool, and you're no son of mine!”

Kyle held the hand to his cheek long after the door slammed behind his father. Long after the sheriff's car disappeared. Even while he watched the TV screen and heard, with an ache in his heart, that the bombing was thought to be the work of right-wing militias operating out of northern Michigan.

Verity took the hand from his cheek and held his cold fingers in hers. “You tried your best.”

“I didn't stop it. It went off anyway!” He could hardly speak for the pain.

“You saved a lot of people! It was the brave thing to do, the right thing,” Verity said.

“They'll find my dad. He'll go to jail—because of me!”

“Kyle. Listen! Stop torturing yourself! You did the right thing!”

Did he? He remembered his father's words, only three days ago, that he should live by his own drummer, not by what others told him to do. And he had.

But—oh—how it hurt. And oh—what a terrible price to pay.

Kyle opened the newspaper Verity had pressed in his hand as he waited for the flight bringing his mom and Brian to Michigan. They would stay until the authorities finished questioning him. Then they'd return to L.A. together. The headline read:

53 Dead, 119 Injured

in Lansing Bombing

Photos showed his father in handcuffs, the federal building in shambles, the dead and injured being carried out on stretchers.

“53 Dead, 119 Injured.” Horrible, horrible. But if he hadn't acted—then what?

G
loria
D. M
iklowitz
is the author of more than sixty fiction and nonfiction books for young readers, some of which have received both national and international awards. Much concerned with contemporary issues that affect young adults today, many of her books deal with such important themes as war, racial injustice, dating violence, and militia involvement. Gloria lives in La Cañada, California, and travels frequently for school visits and conventions.