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

Dad finally said, “Jared, I think you and Pete probably have business to take care of, so we’ll see you at breakfast.”


“Thanks, Dr. Sanderson,” Jared said, and he and Pete walked out of the dining room hand in hand


We helped Dad and Uncle Randy clear the table, and then the four of us made short work of kitchen patrol duty before we settled down in the living room and watched television for a while before we all retired. 


Pete accompanied us to the Y Friday morning, and the four of us swam better than a mile of laps at a vigorous pace. After we spent some time in the steam room, we showered, dressed, and went straight to school, where we had breakfast together in a facility on campus. Dad had an early meeting, so he’d taken the Metro to school while we were at the Y. After breakfast, Paul and I went to our first class and left our bodyguards to hang around the building.


Chapter 80