Pines: Wayward Pines: 1 (The Wayward Pines Trilogy)

by Blake Crouch

He knew six things: The name of the current president. What his mother’s face looked like, though he couldn’t recall her name or even the sound of her voice. That he could play the piano. And fly a helicopter. That he was thirty-seven years old. And that he needed to get to a hospital.

The best and only entertainment was the wall clock hanging above the door, and he lay in bed for several hours watching the second hand make its endless orbit as the morning turned to midday and then to afternoon.

A splinter of singing. There it was—that was the phrase he’d loved.

Chief Warrant Officer Ethan Burke.

“You served in the second Gulf War?” “Yeah, I flew the UH-60.”