Andrew Klavan - The Long Way Home (The Homelanders)

THE LONG
WAY HOME

ALSO BY ANDREW KLAVAN

The Last Thing I Remember

THE LONG
WAY HOME

THE
HOMELANDERS
BOOK TWO

by
Andrew Klavan

2010 by Andrew Klavan

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Page design by Mandi Cofer.

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Publishers Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the authors imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Klavan, Andrew.
The long way home / Andrew Klavan.
p. cm. (The Homelanders ; bk. 2)
Summary: As eighteen-year-old Charlie West continues to elude the law and the group of terrorists looking for him, he tries to remember what happened a year ago and find out who has framed him so he can clear his name.
ISBN 978-1-59554-713-2 (printed case hardcover)
[1. Fugitives from justiceFiction. 2. AmnesiaFiction. 3.
TerrorismFiction. 4. Adventure and adventurersFiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.K67823Lo 2010
[Fic]dc22

2009034531

Printed in the United States of America
10 11 12 13 WC 6 5 4 3 2 1

THIS BOOK IS FOR
TOM AND MARY BELLE SNOW.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE
The Killer in the Mirror

The man with the knife was a stranger. I never saw him before he tried to kill me.

I was in the Whitney Library when it happened, about seven miles from my hometown of Spring Hill. Id been there for about forty-five minutes. I had come with a plana plan to clear my name, to get free, to get home to my family and out of danger. Now I had to leave. It wasnt safe for me to stay in any one place for very long.

I was in the main research room on the librarys second floor. I went down the hall and pushed into the mens room. I took off my black fleece and hung it on the door of one of the stalls. Then, wearing just my jeans and black T-shirt, I stood at the sink and splashed cold water on my face.

I was tiredway tired. I had been on the roadon the runI dont knowseveral weeksa long time. I had to fight to stay alert. If I didnt stay alert, I wouldnt stay alive.

I dried myself off with a couple of paper towels. I looked at myself in the mirror. The guy looking back at me was six feet tall. Thin but with broad shoulders, good muscles, still in good shape. I had a lean, kind of solemn face with a mop of brown hair flopping over the forehead. Brown eyesserious eyesprobably too serious for a guy who was only eighteenbut honest and straightforward. At least, I always thought they were...

I shook my head. Snap out of it. This was no time to doubt myself. I had to keep my spirits up, keep going. Never give in.

It was hard sometimes. I have to admit it. With the bad guys after me, and even the good guysthe police after me too. It was hard not to get discouraged. Lonely. I missed my home. I missed my friends. I missed my mom and dad. I even missed my sister, who could be very annoying, believe me. Imagine sitting down to watch your absolutely favorite television show and just as its about to begin, a nuclear explosion wipes out all of civilization as we know itthats how annoying my sister could be. But I missed her anyway.

I missed just being a regular guy, just going to school and church and hanging out and doing regular things.

But it was no good thinking about that now. I had to keep going. I had to do what Id come here to do. Id promised myself I wouldnt stop trying. Id promised God too. And I wouldnt stop. Not ever.

I turned away from the mirror. I took the fleece down from the stall door. Id bought it at a thrift shop a few days ago. Something to keep me warm now that winter was coming. I tapped it to feel the papers folded up in the inside pocket. Thats what Id come to the library to find. I had what I wanted. It was time to go.

I slipped the fleece over my head, working my arms into the long sleeves.

It was just thenjust as I got the fleece onthat the man came in.

He was a little older than I wasin his twenties maybe. A bit taller and a bit bigger around the waist and shoulders. He was wearing black jeans and a red windbreaker. He had a round, clean, pleasant face. Blond hair, blue eyes. He looked like a nice guy. He gave me a quick nod as he entered and I nodded back. Then he moved past me, heading toward the urinals at the far end of the room.

I took a step away from him, toward the door, ready to leave. As I went, I glanced over at the mirror to check myself one last time. I lifted my fist to my reflection by way of encouragement. Never give in.

And, as I did that, I caught a glimpse of the man behind me. I saw his reflection, too, out of the corner of my eye. Strangely, he had stopped walking toward the urinals. He had pivoted around, back toward me.

Suddenly, without any warning at all, he had a knife in his hand. It was a killers knife, a combat knife. A seven-inch blade of black steel.

At the very moment I spotted him in the mirror, he tried to plunge the blade into my spine.

A jolt of terror went through me, an electric panic that gave me almost supernatural speed. I leapt to my left, turning sideways. The blade lanced past my midsection, so close I felt its motion through the fleece. My years of karate training kicked in. I reacted without thinking, smacking his elbow with my left palm to push the knife hand away.

But I was moving so fast, in so much fear, I stumbled, tripped over my own feet, and staggered back deeper into the bathroom.

That saved my life. Because the man with the knife was well-trained. He knew how to fight. He was already slashing backward at my face. If I hadnt stumbled away from him, hed have cut my throat right there.

I let out a grunt, bending away from the blade. I still didnt have my feet under me, and the movement sent me even farther off balance. I fell, tumbling down to the floor.

It was the end of me. I was sure of it.

You have to understand: a trained man with a knife is as deadly as anything, even more dangerous in some ways than a man with a gun. You might grab a gun. You might wrestle it away. But you cant get hold of a knife without getting cut. And if the knife-man knows what hes doing, he can carve you up with a blade just as fast as a bullet.

And this guy knew what he was doing, all right. All the karate training in the world wasnt going to save me if I didnt act fast and act smart. If I fell and he came down on top of me, Id be dead in seconds.

I knew it even as I was falling. The panic raced through my belly. The thoughts raced through my head: I have to do something.

I hit the tiled floor and kept rolling, fast, away from the oncoming killer. I rolled and leapt up, gaining my feet in the back of the bathroom, pressed up against the far wall, the urinals on either side of me.

Before I could even think, he was there, he was on me, driving the knife toward my gut, the black blade glinting in the light.