CHAPTER 1
I KNOW within thirty-three seconds of entering the front door that my home is empty and my husband and daughter are missing.
As a US Army captain, assigned to the Military Intelligence Command, I have years of training and battlefield experience in Iraq and Afghanistan in evaluating patterns, scraps of information, and bits of communication.
This experience comes in handy when I enter our nice little suburban home in Kingstowne, Virginia, about eight miles from my current duty station at Fort Belvoir. Our light-blue Honda CR-V is parked in the driveway, school has been out for hours, and when I take my first two steps into our house, there’s no television on, no smell of dinner cooking—which my husband, Tom, said would be ready when I got home, since I am late once again—and, most puzzling, no ambient noise or presence from our ten-year-old, Denise, who is usually singing, chatting on her phone, or tap-dancing in the front hallway. Hard to explain, but the moment after I open the door, I know the place is empty and my loved ones are in trouble.
I gently put my black leather purse and soft leather briefcase on the floor. I don’t bother calling out. Instead I go to the near wall, where there’s a framed photo of a Maine lighthouse, and I tug the photo free, revealing a small metal safe built into the wall and a combination keypad next to a handle. I punch in 9999 (in an emergency like this, trying to remember a complex code is a one-way ticket to disaster), tug the handle free, and reach in and pull out a loaded stainless-steel Ruger .357 hammerless revolver.
It’s always loaded. Always. When we first moved in here three years ago, Tom teased me about my paranoia, but he stopped teasing when one of my fellow intelligence officers died in a home invasion gone bad in California: nothing was stolen during this supposed home invasion, and my colleague was nailed to the wall of his bedroom with eight-inch steel spikes.
I kick off my black shoes, move down the short hallway. Kitchen is empty. Tom’s cluttered office is also empty. Since leaving his reporting job last year, Tom has spent many hours in this office writing a book—about what, I don’t know—and I remember he’s supposed to leave to interview a source for said book in two days.
I move on to the also empty dining room, which has an oval-shaped table, six dining room chairs, and a glass-enclosed hutch holding our best china. A single rose stands in a slim glass vase in the center of the table. A gift from Tom last night.
Living room, with reclining chair, two couches, bookcases, flat-screen television with Denise’s collection of DVDs shelved beneath.
Also empty.
I open the door to the basement, sidle down, and then quickly switch on the lights.
Furnace, stored boxes, Denise’s old bicycle, some odds and ends, broken toys and hand tools, Bowflex machine Tom claims he’ll get to one of these days, next to a dusty treadmill I also promise to get to one of these days.
Clear.
Now I’m on the stairs leading to the second floor, creeping up, keeping myself close to the wall so my quiet footfalls won’t cause nails or wood to creak.
I’ve been through basic, extended basic, two infantry tours in Iraq, and was one of the first women to make it through US Army Ranger training. In the past few years, I’ve gone face-to-face with some of the most dangerous people in the world, interviewing Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Taliban men (always men!) who looked at me with such hate from their black and brown eyes that it has caused terrible dreams at night and paranoia during the day; I am always looking over my shoulder.
But nothing so far has scared me as much as walking up these fourteen typical steps in a typical American house in a typical Virginia suburb. Among the many skills an intelligence officer needs is an active and extensive imagination, and I’m imagining—
Tom, facedown on our marital bed, the back of his head a bloody mush from being shot.
Denise, in the corner of her bedroom, holding a stuffed Mickey Mouse toy in her dead arms, her throat slit, blood staining her Frozen T-shirt purchased on a Disney vacation last year.
Tom and Denise, their butchered bodies dumped in the bathtub, a mocking message smeared on the bathroom mirror, written in their blood.
My family, my loves, my life, all dead because of where I’ve gone, whom I’ve fought, and the sins I’ve committed over the years in service to my country.
I’ve never been a particularly religious woman, but as I reach the top of the stairs, my prayers to whatever god is “up there” have deteriorated from “Please, God, let my family be safe,” to “Please, God,” and now, as I step onto the second floor, just to whispers of “Please, please, please.”
My mom instinct kicks in, and I go into Denise’s room.
Messy, but clear.
Our bedroom, across the way.
Much neater, but also clear.
The bathroom.
The door is closed.
I take a deep breath, bat my eyelids to blink out the tears. I spin the doorknob and fling the door open.
The floor mat is tumbled, like it’s been disturbed.
Clothes from Denise—her practice soccer uniform—are in a pile on the floor.
My girl’s room may be messy, but she knows enough to pop her soiled clothes in the nearby hamper.
Wrong, it’s all wrong.
With a hard, deep breath, I rip the shower curtain open.
Clear.
But still oh so wrong.
And now I’m on the ground floor, revolver still in both hands, still looking, hunting, evaluating, and there’s a smell I hadn’t noted before.
A scent of fear, of sweat, of terror.
I pass by the dining room and there’s something there I missed earlier, partially hidden by the vase holding the single rose.
I go into the room, pushing back the happy memories made at this very table—of family dinners, helping Denise with her math homework, Christmas mornings and Thanksgiving afternoons, meals with my fellow officers and civvies from Fort Belvoir—all sorts of pleasant thoughts that are now gone.
There’s a sheet of paper on the table.
Next to the paper is a cell phone I don’t recognize. Mine is in my purse, and both Tom and Denise have iPhones.
This cell phone is square, with a small screen and a keypad underneath.
I step closer to the paper.
Look down.
Standard eight-and-a-half-by-eleven sheet of white paper, with the words centered, the black letters looking like they came off an inkjet printer.
Typical and usual, except the words underneath are neither typical nor usual.
WE HAVE YOUR HUSBAND AND DAUGHTER. NO FBI, STATE POLICE, CID, MILITARY POLICE. YOU AND YOU ALONE.
FOLLOW OUR INSTRUCTIONS TO THE LETTER AND COMPLETE YOUR TASK IN 48 HOURS, OR THEY BOTH DIE.
I read and re-read the message, clear and to the point, and I’m in the middle of reading it for the third time when the strange phone rings, jolting me so hard that I nearly drop my weapon.
CHAPTER 2
I KEEP the revolver in my right hand and pick up the unfamiliar phone with my left, push the Answer button, and say, “Cornwall.”
There’s a male voice on the other end. No hint of static, or crackling, or anything else. This is a burner phone, but it’s a high-end burner phone.
“We have your husband and your daughter,” he starts, in a low but straightforward voice with just a hint of an accent that I can’t place. “They are perfectly fine for now. Within the next forty-eight hours, you are to proceed to Three Rivers, Texas, to a secure location under the control of your intelligence services and free a man very important to us. Forty-eight hours. Once this man is free, we will perform the exchange for the safe return of your husband and daughter.”