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

Spotting the wood basket, he said, “Are we gonna have a fire?”


“Robbie,” one of his helpers said, “where does the tree go?”


“We always put it over there in the corner between the fireplace and the door,” Robbie said.


THE INFORMATION BROKER listened to his subordinate’s end of the telephone conversation in stunned disbelief. When the call ended, he stated the obvious. “They got away?”


“Dug a hole in a rotten bathroom floor and disappeared.”


“Barefoot, in their underwear, in December?” the broker said.


“Yeah, and it’s been snowing down there.”


“Then they’re probably dead of exposure,” the broker said.


“What should our little friend tell them, boss? He’s waiting for me to call back.”


“He needs to tell them to get their asses in gear and search,” the broker said.


“In that case, they torch the cabin and destroy the evidence,” the broker said.


Chapter 40