“The children…” she cried, but Floyd heard no more.

  He was woken from the nightmare. It took him a moment to bridge the gap between dream and reality.

  John crouched beside him, the concern on his face clear even by moonlight.

  “We need to go now,” he said. “There are men moving through the town. Mercenaries. I think they’re looking for you.”

  Floyd got to his feet and hurried across the large living room to the window that overlooked the valley. He could see flashlight beams swinging to and fro in the shadows of the men wielding them as they moved from house to house further down the mountain. Outraged cries and aggressive commands filled the air.

  “Get dressed,” John said, handing Floyd some clothes. “Chris is downstairs getting the horses ready.”

  Floyd pulled a pair of woolen trousers over his shorts, and slipped a cotton tunic over his head, before putting on a heavy Soviet coat badged with the hammer and sickle. John was similarly dressed. He handed Floyd a pair of Nuristani riding boots and pulled on a pair himself.

  Floyd heard more cries in Kamviri in the distance, and demands made in Russian.

  “We don’t have long,” John said.

  He pulled back the corner of a rug to reveal a trap door. He opened it and led Floyd down a run of wooden steps to the stables. Chris was checking the saddle on a large horse.

  “They’re ready,” she said. “Supplies and gear.” She pointed at three backpacks at the bottom of the stairs. “Yours is the blue one.”

  Floyd picked it up and shrugged it on.

  Chris grabbed a coat from a peg near the door and put it on. She and Floyd slung packs on their shoulders, and she took the reins of a gray horse and led it to the stable door. The horse’s hooves scuffed and clopped against the door.

  “This one’s yours,” John said, giving Floyd the reins of a brown mare.

  Floyd patted its muzzle and followed Chris. Floyd brought up the rear with a brown and white stallion.

  Chris paused by the door. “We lead the horses out on foot east along the alley. When we reach the main road, we mount up and head south. Got it?”

  Floyd nodded.

  Chris switched off the stable light and opened the door. The hinges creaked, the horses snorted excitedly, and John’s stallion pawed the floor. Floyd had never been so conscious of noise and tried to will the world into silence. He hardly noticed the blast of ice-cold air that hit him as Chris moved into the alleyway.

  She looked both ways, then signaled to Floyd and John to follow. Voices drifted up the mountainside. They were close, perhaps only a few houses away. Floyd’s horse tried to move back into the stable, but he patted her flank.

  “It’s OK,” he said, and led her along the alleyway, past the neighboring house.

  John followed and the three of them walked without saying a word, aware of people waking in the surrounding buildings. Floyd’s breath formed clouds in the chill, and steam rose from his horse’s nostrils. He realized he had no idea what time it was, that his watch must have been taken along with his flight jacket when he was sentenced to execution. It must have been late because the people who came to their windows looked stunned by sleep and annoyed to have been woken by commotion in the town. A few looked at the trio leading their horses and nodded, but most had their eyes turned toward the other end of the alleyway, which seemed to be where the trouble was happening.

  A voice yelled in Russian. Floyd glanced over his shoulder to see the silhouette of a man in the light of the flashlights. He was looking their way.

  “Come on. They’ve seen us,” Chris said, mounting her horse.

  The man at the other end of the alleyway yelled as Floyd and John climbed into their saddles. Chris urged her horse forward and Floyd’s followed its lead. He hadn’t ridden for years and gripped the reins tightly. He looked back to see John following, behind him a cluster of flashlights and figures running toward them.

  The horses’ hooves pounded with greater urgency, and clouds of vapor swirled around their heads as they gathered speed.

  Over the beating rhythm of the hoofbeats came a sudden, ugly crack. Then another. And another.

  “They’re shooting!” John yelled. A moment later there was another volley and he cried out in pain.

  Floyd looked back to see the Englishman slump forward. He reined in his horse, but John raised his head.

  “Go!” he barked through gritted teeth. “Don’t let this be for nothing.”

  Chris pulled up. “I can’t leave him,” she said as Floyd passed her. “Head south. There’s a map of the passes in your bag.”

  Floyd urged his horse on. It galloped out of the alleyway onto the main road through Kamdesh. Floyd glanced back to see Chris tending to John as a gang of men closed in on them.

  Adrenaline surging, heart thumping, Floyd flicked the reins and turned the horse south. His mount raced forward at top speed and didn’t seem to need further encouragement, but if there was more speed to be had, Floyd wanted it.

  “Yah!” he yelled.

  He heard more shouts behind him, but didn’t look back. Soon he and the horse were lost to the darkness.

  CHAPTER 28

  MY SECOND TIME in the hospital in less than twenty-four hours. Danny sat next to me, grim and still as stone. I wasn’t sure whether my reassurances had calmed him or if he was simply numb. Maria was pacing the lobby of the Berwick Commonwealth Hospital, her skinny arms folded, her brow furrowed.

  “You sure there’s no one I should call?” I asked when she came near.

  She shook her head.

  “Your dad?” I tried.

  Danny was about to reply, but Maria shot him a dirty look and he clammed up.

  After the ambulance had picked us up and we’d gotten Beth seen to, I’d tried to ask the children about their family, but neither of them would say anything. I quizzed them about their mother’s revelation that the man who’d introduced himself to me as Donald Singer wasn’t her father, but they weren’t willing to talk about it. I’d checked this guy’s background, so either Beth was lying or I’d fallen victim to some very sophisticated invention.

  While I was thinking this through, I noticed myself appear on the TV on the wall of the waiting room. There was no sound, but the footage being broadcast was of the mayhem outside the Relax Inn. A picture of me and my name were inset into the main image, which cut to one of the motel guests being interviewed about what had happened.

  I took out my phone and called Justine.

  “Hey,” she said. “I was about to call you. I just spoke to Jessie. Are you OK?”

  “Fine,” I replied. “Can you ask Mo-bot to run a reverse search? See if anyone is looking for us…” I broke off when I saw Dr. Sohal, a slim middle-aged man with designer glasses and a Stars and Stripes tie pin, come through the emergency room doors.

  “I’ve got to go,” I said.

  “Jack—” Justine said before I hung up.

  The doctor approached with a smile on his face. He was leading the team treating Beth, and his expression was one of relief. “I think she’s fine,” he said.

  Maria stopped pacing and ran over. “Can we see her?”

  “Of course,” Sohal replied. “Come with me.”

  Danny got to his feet and joined his sister. I rose and followed the two kids who trailed the doctor into the ER. The moment I stepped through the doors, I was greeted by a nurse I recognized from Beth’s response team.

  “Excuse me, sir,” she said. “I need to ask you some questions. The patient claims not to be able to remember her home address or date of birth. It could just be shock, but we need to book an MRI scan to check there’s no neurological damage. For that I’ll need her insurance details. Or yours. If I could have your name and details that would also be helpful.”

  There was something about the way the nurse had framed the question. Her delivery seemed to waver between passive aggression and sweet apple pie, and her expression kept alternating between a bright smile and anxious concern. Had she seen the news footage?

  “Let me go and ask who her insurer is,” I said, pressing on before the nurse had a chance to object.

  I hurried through the otherwise empty emergency room to the bay where Beth was leaning out of bed and hugging Danny and Maria. She tensed the moment she saw me.

  “When can she move?” I asked Dr. Sohal.

  “I just want to do an MRI to see about the memory loss—” he began.

  “But she’s OK?” I cut in.

  “Probably, but—”

  I cut him off again. “The nurse mentioned she wanted to check something with you about the insurance paperwork.”

  He smiled uncertainly. “Really?”

  I nodded.

  “One moment, please,” he said, stepping out of the bay.

  “Have you really lost your memory?” I asked Beth.

  She shook her head.

  “Good,” I replied. “The men who attacked you at the motel have set the authorities on me. We’re all over the news. We need to go.”

  Beth pushed herself upright and wobbled for a moment.

  “Mom?” Danny remarked, his voice frail with concern.

  “I’m OK, hun.”

  Beth slid off the gurney and got to her feet. I took her arm and the children clustered around us as we left the bay.

  “Excuse me!” Sohal called out when he saw us.

  Behind him, I saw flashes of blue clothing through the glass doors. Two uniformed police officers entered the lobby and approached reception.

  “This way,” I said.

  We ran in the other direction, through the ER, and took a left turn onto a corridor that led to the X-ray department. If they had my identity, they might be able to track my phone, so I took the difficult decision to jettison it. I slipped it onto the middle shelf of a supply trolley we passed.

  I heard a door slam and the sound of distant footsteps running in our direction.

  “Come on, kids,” Beth said, hustling the children forward.

  I ran ahead and burst through the fire door at the end of the corridor. As I spilled into the freezing air, an ear-piercing alarm sounded. The children covered their ears as Beth hurried them out. I glanced around, then ran toward the street, where a cab waited at the hospital entrance. Its exhaust puffed a steady cloud.

  “Come on,” I said.

  We ran across a patch of snow, crossed the salted sidewalk, and reached the taxi. I whipped open the door, bundled Beth and the children inside, and followed them.

  “Easy, buddy,” the driver said.

  “Two hundred bucks if you get us out of here now,” I said.

  “Okey-dokey,” he replied eagerly.

  He slipped the gearshift and we started moving. We were about thirty yards down the street when the first police officer burst through the fire exit.

  Beth and the kids ducked but I kept my eyes on him.

  “Man who’d pay two hundred for a ride, would probably pay three,” the opportunistic cab driver noted.

  I locked onto his eyes in the rearview mirror.

  “Freedom ain’t free,” he added knowingly.

  I nodded. It was worth the price. As the hospital receded behind us, I settled back and thought about our next move.

  CHAPTER 29

  THE CAB TOOK us to West Summit, a small town north of I-80. I asked the driver to drop us by the Kalahari Resort, a vast hotel, waterpark, convention center, and shopping mall that lay at the edge of town. I’d talked to Beth about catching a bus to Chicago. After I’d paid the driver a fare that amounted to ten dollars for every minute we were in the cab and he’d driven away, I started walking west.

  “Come on,” I said.

  “Where?” Beth asked.

  She gathered the children to her and eyed me with suspicion.

  “A Marine buddy of mine used to have a fishing cabin up by Stillwater Lake. It’s about a mile that way,” I replied. “It’s somewhere safe, and most importantly, no one knows about it.”

  Beth hesitated and looked at Danny and Maria, who watched her uncertainly.

  “I’m here to help you,” I assured her. “I didn’t know your father was dead.”

  “He is,” she said. “Died a long time ago. Either you’re not a very good detective or someone was clever enough to outfox you. Either way, it doesn’t fill me with confidence.”

  The remark wounded because it was true. I knew I wasn’t a bad detective, but, in the man who’d posed as Donald Singer, I’d encountered someone who’d outsmarted me. The backstory he’d built on the internet and public records was too convincing to have been the work of an amateur, and I was concerned by the thought I could no longer see the edges of this investigation. What had started as a simple hunt for a mother and her two young children had grown into something else.

  “I know. I messed up, but I promise you’ll be safe with me,” I said. “Even if it’s just until you decide you want to go your own way.”

  Beth nodded. “OK. Come on, kids.” She gave them a squeeze and nudged them toward me.

  I crouched down to their level. “I’m here to help you. You can trust me. I promise.”

  West Summit was a small Pennsylvania town of a few hundred people that lay to the west of Pocono Summit. It was popular with hunters and anglers during summer, but in the depths of winter it seemed to be hibernating. We went through a tunnel that took us under I-380 and followed a trail into the snowy woods that surrounded the town. I could see the roofs of houses nestled in the trees, but we stayed clear of civilization and turned northwest, sticking to the woodland trail until we reached the tiny commercial district that passed for a town center. There was a mini-mart and the bright lights of a pizza restaurant shone in the gloomy light.

  We passed the mini-mart, which was surrounded by high drifts of snow, plowed to keep the parking lot clear. The store was open, but there were no vehicles in the lot. A sickly-sweet smell of pretzels and donuts drifted through a steaming air vent. I looked at the downturned faces of the cold children.

  “Wait here,” I said, and jogged into the store.

  I picked up a couple days’ essential supplies and some hot treats, and paid the bored teenager behind the counter. I hurried outside and offered Beth and the children warm pretzels.

  “Thanks,” Beth said.

  The children nodded. “Thank you, sir,” Danny remarked.

  We kept moving as they devoured the sweet pastry and made good progress along Stillwater Drive, the quiet residential road that led to the lake. None of us wanted to be outside any longer than necessary. We walked briskly in an effort to ward off the chill. Beth tried to keep the children’s spirits up by pointing out some of the more beautiful ice formations in the trees, or icicles hanging from the homes we passed.

  “Not much farther,” I said as I took them over a graying drift of icy snow that had been plowed over the mouth of a trail leading off the main road.

  The track leading up to Leo Wylie’s cabin was buried beneath deep snow, and we all had soaking wet shoes and pants by the time we’d finished walking the final quarter of a mile.

  The cabin stood in the middle of a tiny clearing, and nature had most definitely encroached since the last time I’d seen it. Overhanging branches brushed against the walls and touched the top of the roof. Snow had drifted up to the first-floor windows on either side of the building. At first sight, it certainly appeared no one was home.

  A porch ran the whole length of the front of the cabin, keeping the entrance free of snow, and large piles of seasoned logs stood either side of the door. At least we’d be warm inside.

  I found a spare key hidden in a nook behind the mailbox that was fixed to the wall between the front door and one of the log piles, and we hurried inside.

  A couple hours later, after a quick meal of mac and cheese, Beth put the children to sleep in one of the four bedrooms. They wanted to share, although neither would admit it was because they were scared. After a couple of failed attempts at getting them to settle, Beth joined me in the living room, where I’d managed to get a blazing fire going in the large stone hearth. I’d also found a bottle of Leo’s wine and poured us two glasses. The smooth red brought the twin comforts of warmth and calm. For a moment we sat saying nothing, listening to the crack of the burning logs, savoring the peace after the day’s mayhem.

  Beth’s eyes were on the fire. She opened her mouth a couple times and I sensed she was building up to something.

  “Can I trust you?” she asked earnestly.

  I nodded.

  “It’s my husband,” she responded, and tears welled in her eyes. “At least I’m pretty sure it is. I think he’s the reason we’re here. I believe he’s in danger, and those men… those assholes who tried to take our children…” Her voice trailed off and she gulped in a calming breath. “I think those men are trying to use us to get to him.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. My husband is a Special Forces pilot. I never know anything about his missions. He flies Ospreys for Third Special Forces Group. His name is Joshua Floyd.”

  CHAPTER 30

  BETH TOOK A sip of wine and followed it with a deep breath.

  “I know the Third,” I said. “I flew a Sea Knight in Afghanistan.”

  “You look like you’ve seen combat,” she replied. “Not that you’re scarred or anything. It’s in the eyes. Hard to describe. You’ve seen trauma, and it’s left its imprint.”

  I nodded slowly. I knew exactly what she was talking about. The horror of battle, the deaths of friends, these were things that would never leave me.

  “I was an Osprey pilot,” Beth said. “That’s how Floyd and I met. I always said I’d never marry another soldier, but love makes liars of us all.”

  She had another drink.

  “I took my discharge when Maria came along. We married soon afterward, but the nature of Josh’s work means we kept the wedding secret. The Army classified his file. No one is supposed to know we’re together, and we go to great lengths to keep it that way. He doesn’t really go out when he’s on leave, and the kids have been taught never to talk about him.”