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

During a lull in the conversation, Paul looked directly at Randy and me and said, “Okay, guys, what’s up?”


“Whatever do you mean?” Randy said.


“Come on, Dad,” Paul said. “You canceled our train tickets at the last minute and flew down here.”


“Yeah,” Sean said, “and we know how expensive airline tickets are when they aren’t purchased two weeks or more in advance. So what’s up?”


“Well,” I said, “now that you mention it, we do have an unusual situation we need to discuss. For the record, however, your train tickets weren’t wasted; they were exchanged for your trip home at Christmas.”


“You’re changing the subject,” Sean said.


“That’s true. Get your laptop, Randy, and I’ll get the gadget. It’s time for show and tell.”


Chapter 10