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, especially after all that proud talk at Thanksgiving,” I said.


“I dunno,” Sean said, “maybe we’ve had a wake-up call.”


“Well,” I said, “a life-threatening experience certainly qualifies on that count.”


“Anyhow, we’re tired of playing games” Paul said.


“Yeah,” Sean said. “We have no intention of running around campus holding hands, but when we get home from school, we’d like to be able to be ourselves, that is, without having to hide in our room behind a locked door.”


“Kind of like we are now,” Paul said.


“So what’s the answer?” Sean said.


“It wouldn’t give me heartburn if you left The Citadel,” I said. “As I recall, we didn’t exactly talk you into it in the first place.”


“That’s true,” Randy said. “It was your decision, all the way.”


“As for Georgetown, I don’t see why not. You’re both straight-A students, and I’m not without influence.”


“Dad,” Paul said, “can we afford it? Sean has a trust fund to pay for his education, but I don’t.”


Chapter 55