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

“Yeah, but it’s all at our house in Arlington. Why?”


“After we leave the sheriff’s office this afternoon, Mike and I need to run over to Asheville and do a quick drive-by inspection of our rental houses. There’s a couple of malls over there, and we could drop you off at one of them, if you want to shop.”


“It would be nice to have a couple of small items under that tree for the boys,” I said.


From the kitchen, Randy said, “George, how many rental houses do you guys have?”


“We have five in Asheville,” George said, “and at least that many in Jacksonville. We mostly buy bargain-priced properties, sometimes even distressed properties. In Jacksonville, we have the skills to fix them up, but we have to hire help up here.”


“You have the skills, babe,” Mike said. “I’m just your star gofer.”


“Yeah,” George said, “and gofers are necessary.”


“Seriously,” Mike said, “George is a pretty good carpenter, and he can do wiring and roofing.”


Chapter 51