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

When he heard that, the man Dad had introduced as Rupert said, “If we can persuade this guy to make the call, we just might be able to catch the big shot.”


“Good,” Uncle Randy said. “I’d like an end to this stuff once and for all.”


“Yeah, we can only hope,” Dad said.


When we were once again alone in the house, we nuked the remaining pizza, which had grown cold after we’d stopped eating, and finished it off, this time replacing the soft drinks with wine. While we were eating, Paul said, “Dad, would you really have used the drill on that guy’s teeth?”


“What do you think?” Uncle Randy said.


Chapter 82