That didn’t sound good at all.

Now I could feel the car changing direction, slowing. We were getting off the highway. I figured we must be approaching our destination. Was this the place where they were going to get rid of me?

“I don’t know,” the second speaker-Jim-began. “Either way, I think we have some kind of responsibility-”

“No,” said Waterman, cutting him off. “This was part of the deal. We knew it would be like this from the beginning.”

After that, the voices stopped for a while. I shifted in the car again. I felt around me, trying to find some way to get the trunk open or maybe some weapon I might be able to use: a tire iron maybe. But there was nothing. The trunk’s latch was hidden inside the body of the car. And the only objects around me were those insulated wires, which I now realized were a pair of jumper cables. Not much help.

I’d have to wait and take my chances. They might just open up the trunk and shoot me, but they might take me out first, take me somewhere secluded. Sensei Mike had trained me well in karate. I was a good fighter, a black belt. There might be a chance, a small chance, I could break away from these guys and run for it.

So I said a prayer for calm and for courage and I waited and, while I waited, I tried to think.

Who were they? Who was Waterman? Was he one of the Homelanders? I had no way of knowing. That time I’d been arrested, someone had whispered in my ear that I should “find Waterman,” but I didn’t know who the whisperer was-a friend or an enemy? If all Waterman wanted was to “get rid” of me, why hadn’t he just done it in the alley? Why hadn’t he just shot me for real and left me there?

Maybe they need something, I thought. Maybe they think I have some important piece of information.

It isn’t going to be pretty finding out.

That didn’t sound so good either. Were they going to torture me? Did my life depend on the answers I gave them? Didn’t they understand? I didn’t know what had happened. I didn’t remember.