War by Peter Lerangis Page B

among the trees. The man on the left had a large red stain on his chest. The one on the right had what seemed to be a hole through his head.
    Edmonds. Rademacher.
    Cut?
    Jake sank back in the brush. The scene seemed to whirl before him, and he felt as if he were floating.
    A movie.
    A man dressed in black was fixing Mrs. Stoughton’s makeup. He was wearing a baseball cap embroidered with the words Civil Disobedience.
    Behind him, a woman was bending over the wire Jake had stumbled over. “Affirmative on electrical damage,” she called into a wireless headphone. “Send Herb after he fixes that memory chip.”
    The blood.
    The deaths.
    Fake.
    All of it.
    But how — ?
    Jake’s mind raced back over the last twenty-four hours — all the shootings and the bombings.
    I never saw them. I never saw the bombs or the bullets. Just the aftermath.
    The stone wall. The massacre of Edmonds’s men.
    Rigged.
    The exploding munitions cabin.
    Choreographed.
    That was why Edmonds pulled me away before it happened. He knew in advance.
    “Nice job, kid.”
    Edmonds.
    No, that’s not his name. He’s an actor.
    “Almost lost you there,” the actor said. “What’s the matter, couldn’t find your scene map?”
    “Scene map?” Jake asked.
    The man’s face fell. “Didn’t they give you one?”
    No. They didn’t.
    He didn’t.
    Gideon Kozaar.
    Jake looked past Edmonds. Past the chattering actors, the occasional puffs of cigarette smoke, the dead men come to life.
    Beyond them was the hut.
    Lopsided, boarded up.
    Its door opened briefly. And Jake saw, silhouetted in deep red light, the profile of a man wearing earphones.
    Jake stood slowly. Pain shot upward from his ankle.
    He hobbled a few steps, then steadied.
    “Kid? Are you okay?”
    Jake ignored the question. He elbowed his way through the crowd until he reached the hut.
    The door was padlocked.
    He grabbed the lock and pulled anyway.
    The door swung open.
    In the red light, the room seemed bathed in blood. Along one wall, a bank of monitors glowed dully with familiar images: the encampment, the woods, the ridge, the hut itself from the other side.
    “I was wondering when you’d find me.” Gideon Kozaar’s back was to Jake. He was staring at the monitors.
    “This is — this is so — ” Jake spluttered.
    “Unfair?” Kozaar turned. A small, tight smile played beneath his beard.
    “I could have been killed!”
    “Not likely. The cast was well trained to protect you. They knew where the explosives were. They were equipped with hidden earphones that warned them of the timing. Some got carried away. James Nickerson — the fellow who plays Rademacher — he will be fined for what he did to your cheek. And if you need plastic surgery, I will pay for it. But this is the price for art, Jake. Not every fourteen-year-old stars in a movie based on himself.”
    “Based on me ? You don’t know me!”
    “I didn’t have to know you. You created the story as I watched — the tale of a war-loving boy named Jake who wills himself into the past and finds what war is really like.”
    “How — how did you do it? The old village — ?”
    “A replica. Built by my construction crew. They cleared a spot in the woods, even landscaped the soil. You met three of them on the day I gave you the note. They were checking the topography of your neighborhood, fine-tuning. Impressive, eh?”
    “What if I hadn’t found the set? I nearly didn’t — ”
    “I had faith.”
    “ — And where were you when I got there? Why didn’t you tell me it was a movie?”
    “It would have made you self-conscious. If you knew it was a film, you never would have given the powerful performance you did.”
    Powerful?
    I gave up.
    I ran.
    I was weak.
    And the world is going to see it.
    “No — ” Jake murmured.
    “Bravery versus prudence,” Kozaar said. “Arrogance versus humility. Tactics gone wrong. Life and death. All wrapped up in a nifty whodunit. You’ll be instant A-list in Hollywood.”
    “I