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

Saturday night, we had dinner at The Pirate’s House, a well-known restaurant. Randy and I had a great deal of wine, so we asked one of the boys to drive us back to the hotel. When we went to bed that night, we felt closer to the boys than we had in a very long time.


When Randy and I were belly to belly in our bed, I said, “I don’t care how much this long weekend cost, it was damn well worth it.”


“Babe, you just said a mouthful. For what it’s worth, I think the boys really had a great time too.”


Chapter 12