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

My cell phone rang just as we were pulling into our garage, and I looked at the display before I said, “Any news?”


“Yes,” Rupert said, “and it’s not good. Your boys may not have been on the train, but their cell phones are—GPS is picking up two clear signals heading north with the train. I’m going to have someone board the train when it gets to Philadelphia and conduct a search. I’ve already got people tracking down and questioning the crew that brought the train from Florida to Washington.”


“I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is,” he said.


Chapter 20