Shell Shocked (22 page)

“We don't have to die! Can't we leave the building? There's still time if we leave right now and—”

“There is time. No explosives will be set off until I set them off.”

“You?”

“There is only me to do it.”

I felt a wave of relief. If it was only him, then as soon as we stepped outside he'd be shot and the whole thing would be over before he could detonate anything.

I staggered to my feet.

“You sit down!” he yelled.

I stayed on my feet. “But we have to leave the building.”

He shook his head. “We are not leaving.”

“But if you set off the explosives then we'll both be killed!” I gasped.

“As I said, I was dead from the moment I accepted this mission.”

Suddenly I knew what he meant. He'd never intended to get away. He was going to stay right here and detonate the explosives that would destroy the buildings—including this building—and take his own life.

“I thought I would be alone at the end,” he said. “At least I have somebody to witness my triumph.”

“It's a triumph to kill innocent men and women?” I snapped.

“In war there are no innocents. It is for my country that I do this, to ensure our ultimate victory.”

“You won't be here to see it,” I said.

“And neither will you. Now, sit and don't move or I will shoot you.”

He pushed me over so that I fell backwards and into the wall, and something jammed into my back—the pistol. For a few seconds I'd forgotten about it, tucked into the back of my pants. All I had to do was pull it out.

I looked at Case. His head was still bleeding. Blood flowed over his face and stained his shirt. He was on one knee. He had placed his pistol on the ground beside him and he was focused on the wires. He was taking them, one by one, and threading them into what I assumed was the detonator.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He looked up briefly but didn't answer.

“If I'm going to die, shouldn't I at least know how it's going to happen?” I asked. “It's not like I can stop you.”

He nodded. “I am placing the wires into the detonator. Once they are placed I will be able to activate … set off the explosives.”

All I had to do was pull out the pistol and shoot him before he could do that—or before he could use his pistol to shoot me.

His attention was focused on the detonator. He was threading in the wires, one by one. I almost laughed when I thought that many of those wires led to nothing, had been cut or removed. Then I remembered that most of the others were still connected to deadly explosives.

Slowly I reached around behind my back. I felt the pistol and pulled it out by the barrel. I shifted it around so that I was holding it by the handle. I slipped my other hand back and clicked off the safety … or had I clicked it on? I wasn't sure if I'd already had the safety on or not. I must have had it on. I couldn't look. Once I brought it forward I had to be ready to fire. I wouldn't have time to do anything else. I put my finger on the trigger, ready to fire the instant I pulled the gun out.

I kept my eyes on Case. He was still focused on the detonator, and his gun was on the floor. He hadn't noticed. I brought the gun forward and held it in front of me, but still he hadn't noticed. I glanced down at the safety. It was off. The gun was ready to fire. All I had to do was squeeze the trigger and it would be over—there was nothing he could do to stop me. I just had to pull the trigger and kill him … kill him … or …

“Put your hands up!” I said, my voice cracking over the last word.

He looked up, and his expression was one of complete and utter shock. And then a small smile came to his lips. Why was he smiling?

“Do you have what it takes to kill a man in cold blood?” he asked.

I didn't answer.

“Well?”

“Yes, and I will if you don't put that detonator down
right now
.”

He didn't.

“Some of the wires are already connected. If you shoot me, then I should still be able to push the detonator. Those buildings will blow up, killing hundreds, perhaps thousands. So,
you
should put
your
gun down or
I
will push the detonator.”

“If I put down the gun, you'll connect the rest of the wires and then blow up all the buildings. So put it down and we'll all walk away alive.”

“I told you, I'm already dead, whether I die here as a hero or in front of a firing squad as a spy. Either way I'm going to—”

I fired, and as the gun kicked back I saw the bullet rip into his chest. He staggered and stumbled and started to fall forward, dropping the detonator! I leaped up and grabbed for it as it tumbled toward the floor … it bounced off my outstretched hands and continued to fall, and I watched as it hit the floor and … and nothing.

I reached over and grabbed the detonator and held it in my hands. I stared at it. This small black box contained the spark to light a fire that could ignite the explosion to destroy the entire facility and kill thousands of people. And it was in my hands—small, weighing almost nothing.

It was over and—there was a loud noise, the sound of a door being smashed in. There was yelling and screaming from somewhere down the corridor. I could hear people running, and it was getting louder, they were coming this way!

I reached over and grabbed my pistol. Whoever it was, they were only getting to this detonator one way—over my dead body. I got up onto one knee and held the gun as steady as I could—my hand was shaking—and aimed it down the corridor, toward the voices and—it was Mr. Granger and Mr. McGregor and Bill and half a dozen soldiers! I lowered my pistol. It really
was
over.

I SAT DOWN
on the chesterfield beside my mother. She reached over and took my hand. I knew I was too old to have my mother hold my hand, but it felt good. It was something we both needed.

The last three days had been strange. Jack and I had been placed in the back of a van and driven straight here from the plant. I wasn't sure where “here” was. Between the dark and the storm, I hadn't seen much of anything through the van's small windows. I was told that we were in a “safe house.” I liked the idea of being safe. We weren't allowed to go back to our old house. We hadn't been allowed to go outside.

When we'd arrived, our mother had already been here for a while, sleeping upstairs in one of the bedrooms. She'd slept for almost twenty-four hours before the medicine finally wore off. For all I knew, Daphne—or Liesl—
who had drunk more of the tea, might still be asleep. I could have asked Bill—he'd have told me—but I was almost afraid to find out. I knew what happened to spies. I didn't like Liesl, but I didn't want to think about her being shot. That image of Case was so fresh in my mind I didn't want to think of anybody else getting shot.

For three days we'd been debriefed. We'd been asked hundreds of questions about what had happened, we'd even written reports. And the same thing happened to Mr. Granger and Mr. McGregor. They were two of the very few people we'd seen since arriving here. It was like we were prisoners … well, not prisoners, but we definitely had guards all around the building, inside and out.

Jack walked into the room. He sat down on the other side of our mother and she took his hand as well. Somehow that was as reassuring as her taking my hand.

My brother had been remarkably quiet. Partly it was because he was overwhelmed—we were all overwhelmed—by what had happened. Jack had emerged from the service corridor in time to see the action. He'd been wedged in, trapped, in the spot that had almost stopped me. His clothes had been ripped and torn and he had been cut and scraped as he'd desperately clawed his way through. I knew he felt bad about not being there for me, but it wasn't like he hadn't tried.

I also knew that he was still troubled about Liesl. He
must have felt stupid for letting her trick him like that, but he also would have been hurt. Jack had never had a girlfriend before, and to think that she really didn't care for him, that it was just a game … well, that would have hurt a lot more than any cuts or bruises.

I looked at my watch. It was still ticking away. Bill was scheduled to arrive shortly, and then, we'd been told, we would discover our fate. I was certain we were going to have to move, change schools and change towns and maybe change names again. I didn't care. They could call me anything they wanted short of Georgina and I'd be happy to be gone. As long as we stayed anywhere near Ajax or Whitby I'd never be able to walk down the street without looking over my shoulder. I'd be waiting for something to happen or somebody to come after us. We were now a bigger target than ever. Not only had we stopped the Nazis from destroying the munitions factory, I'd actually killed a Nazi agent.

I'd replayed that scene in my head a hundred times over the past few days. I knew that I'd had no choice. I'd asked him to put down the detonator, and if I hadn't shot him he'd have taken me and thousands of other people to the grave with him when he destroyed the plant.

Bill had discovered that seventeen buildings had been wired with explosives. We'd managed to cut the wires to
six of them, but if Case had pushed that button, if he'd been able to activate those charges … I didn't even want to think about it.

I wondered if I'd ever be able to get those final images out of my mind. Him standing there, holding the detonator, and me firing the gun. It was like it was happening in slow motion. That look of shock on his face as the bullet slammed into him and—a knock on the door startled me from my thoughts.

“I'll get it,” Jack said.

“No,” my mother said, refusing to let go of his hand. “Come in!” she called out instead.

The door opened and Bill entered—followed by Little Bill. We shook hands and Bill gave my mother a big hug. Soon they were seated right across from us, and they started to make polite small talk with my mother. I'd waited long enough—I needed to know.

“Well, what's to become of us?” I asked, cutting them off.

Bill laughed, and Little Bill gave me a knowing smile.

“You certainly know how to cut to the chase,” Little Bill said. He pulled something from the inner pocket of his coat. It was a newspaper. “Let me be the first to formally offer my condolences to your mother on the loss of her sons,” he said.

“What?” I gasped.

He handed me a copy of the local newspaper, the
Whitby Reporter
. The headline read “Four Young People Killed In Car Crash.” It detailed how Jack, Liesl, Juliette and I had been killed in an accident. Apparently, the driver, Liesl, had lost control of the vehicle and it had crashed into some trees.

“A similar story will appear in
The Commando
,” Bill said. “Mr. Granger informed me that the editor, Mr. Chalmers, was very upset when he was told of your death.”

Well, one thing was clear enough: We would never return to Whitby or Ajax or anywhere around here again.

“Mr. McGregor also told me that there were quite a few tears shed for you at school when it was announced,” Bill said. “Apparently, a couple of the lasses fancied you, George.”

I felt myself blush.

“Reportedly Mr. McGregor gave quite the eulogy at the school assembly. But yours was, of course, not the only tragedy,” Bill said. “
The Commando
also ran an article about an accident at the steam plant that took the lives of five men, including Case, two other agents and the two innocent men they killed, one of whom had a daughter who attends the school.” He paused. “Of course, the article says nothing about what really happened, only that five men were killed in an unfortunate industrial accident at the steam plant.”

“Of course,” I said.

“It is important that people in the plant and in the community never know how critical the situation became,” Bill said.

“Or that their lives were saved by the actions of a very few people, including a fifteen-year-old and a twelve-year-old,” Little Bill said.

“I didn't do anything,” Jack said. “It was all George.”

“This victory was due to the actions of four
men
, working together as a team, and I am proud to be sitting here across from two of those men. Your actions saved the lives of those people and the production of the entire plant. Without that production, without that ammunition, the course of the war might have turned against us,” Little Bill said. “You boys are heroes.”

He stood up and offered us both his hand and we shook it. I found myself blushing again.

“I am truly sorry that no one can know of your heroism. I'm sorry, too, that we needed to kill you in the story.”

“Couldn't we have just moved away?” my mother asked.

“We wanted to make sure,” Little Bill explained, “that you are no longer seen as a target by any enemy agents who might remain in the community.”

“Oh, my goodness,” she gasped. “I hadn't thought about that. And this will make us safe?”

“That is part of the plan for your future.”

“But why should they believe the newspapers?” I asked, before I'd thought through how this question would worry my mother more.

“You're right, George, they would probably question the story, think that it was an article we planted,” Little Bill said.

“So … why put it in?”

“To back up the information that they received from their own agent.”

Now I was confused.

Little Bill smiled. “We had help from that girl … you called her Daphne.”

“I'd like to call her some other things!” Jack snapped.

“Then perhaps one of them should be ‘friend,'” Little Bill said.

Jack snorted. “She was an enemy agent, she took us prisoner, she was going to kill us!”

“I don't believe she actually could have pulled the trigger,” Little Bill said. “She was an enemy agent, doing what she believed for her own cause and her own country, as were the two of you. But in the end she made a decision to safeguard your lives.”