Professor and secret government analyst Ian Sanderson's bad day gets worse when he arrives home one miserable November evening to find an apparently incriminating photograph in a FedEx envelope in his doorway, followed by increasingly threatening photographs over the next two or three weeks. It isn't just Ian being set up: his partner, Randy, a lieutenant colonel working on a top-secret Pentagon project, is also at risk. Someone obviously wants something, but what? And from whom?<br><br> Soon, a mysterious caller demands that Randy disclose information about the project he's been working on. When he refuses, Ian's and Randy's sons, David and Paul, are kidnapped from an Amtrak passenger train. Resourceful and intelligent, the boys manage to escape-only to find themselves lost and alone in a remote wilderness. With time running out, can Ian and Randy track down their blackmailers? Or will the man known only as The Broker claim another set of victims?

The Burdens of Truth

“Yep,” he said. “There’s one really tall tree on the other side of the ravine, and it’s the only possible site.”


“That’s a long way from the pool.”


“Ever hear of telephoto lenses?” he said.


“Yeah. When do you think those pictures were taken?”


“Actually,” he said, “I’m not one hundred percent sure, but that was the last time the four of us used the pool at a time when none of the boys’ friends were around.”


“Which means that whoever these people are, they’ve been watching us for a while, looking for a way to gain some leverage over us.”


Chapter 9