“That’s correct Jonah. All of it. And exactly at three p.m.”

  Jonah’s hands began to shake. He set the phone down and put it on speaker. “Mr. Onan, I simply don’t know if this is possible. We have more than half a trillion in holdings. That type of a sell order would have devastating effects on the American markets, not to mention the ripple effects on the global markets.”

  There was silence at the end of the line for a moment. Jonah wondered for a millisecond if Ercan was reconsidering his request. Jonah began to stammer, filling the silence, “The hedge fund investment rules are very specific, Mr. Onan. I have discretionary use of the money. My job is to grow it and we don’t move it except for twice a year. That window closed yesterday, so it’s not possible to do this. Besides the fact that you would basically eliminate all of your gains. There’d be no way to get the top of the market prices for all of the positions that we hold. As we sold them off, the price would necessarily drop, which would cause a cascade of losses across the board…”

  “Jonah?” Ercan said slowly, drawing out each sound.

  “Yes, sir?” The words came out weak and sad as if Jonah’s hand had just gotten caught in the cookie jar.

  “Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with? You have any idea what I am capable of doing not only to you, but to every person you have ever known or loved, including the family you have left back in England?”

  Jonah’s entire body began to shake. “I’m sorry, Mr. Onan —”

  “Don’t question me ever again. Not if you want to live to see the sunset. Schedule the sell orders. And by the way, in case you decide you’re going to change your mind, I want you to look downstairs.”

  Jonah got up from his desk in his Park Avenue apartment and looked down at the street. Two men wearing dark suits with their arms crossed were staring up at his apartment looking at him. “You see those two men, Jonah?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do what I say or you’ll be spending a good deal of time with them, time that won’t be pleasant, time that you’ll wish they would put you out of your misery. Are we clear? Now go to the office and do as you’re told.”

  “Yes…”

  Jonah’s hands were shaking so hard as he went to hang up the phone he could barely touch the screen to end the call. He sat back in his chair, his eyes closed, thinking about the two men that were standing downstairs, waiting to do unspeakable things to him. Something inside of Jonah knew this day would come. He’d made a ton of money and become a leader in his field, but it came with a steep price. He looked back at his screen, sucking in a deep breath. He had no choice. If he wanted to live another day, Ercan was right. He would have to do what he was told. They owned him.

  57

  Tom Stewart had gotten back from his run, taken a shower, and was drinking a glass of water, still wondering why Shelley hadn’t returned any of his texts or phone calls by six-thirty in the morning when the doorbell rang.

  Frowning, Tom assumed that his security detail had a question for him, but as he opened the door, two black-haired men with thick beards wearing jeans and t-shirts shoved their way inside. Tom didn’t have time to react. Before he could yell for help or reach for one of the many weapons he had stashed around the house, they’d already grabbed him, cable-tied his wrists together, and forced him out the door, the glass of water he’d been drinking shattering on the floor. Shoving him in the back of a black van parked in the driveway, the door closed. As he was about to demand to be released, a strip of silver duct tape was slapped over his mouth, a black hood draped over his head.

  Tom started to shake but sat silently, his CIA training kicking in. Just breathe, he told himself. Just breathe.

  58

  A half-hour after his conversation with Senator Riggs, Travis got a call back from her. “Mr. Bishop?”

  “Senator?”

  “Do you have paper and a pen handy?”

  Travis walked to the desk in the corner of the hotel room. He’d been busy repacking his suitcase when the senator had called. “Yes, go ahead.”

  She read off an address in Virginia. “This is the address for Tom Stewart’s house. I need you and Agent Lewis to go there right now.”

  Travis narrowed his eyes. He and Catherine had been planning on spending the day tracking down Jonah Hudson, but apparently, Senator Riggs had another job for him. “What happened?”

  “He’s missing.”

  The words hung in the air for a moment. Travis’s mind began to reel, remembering the panic and paranoia in Tom’s voice from a couple of hours before. “What? How is that possible? I just spoke to him.”

  “Apparently, his security detail saw him go for his run and return home. The agent on duty got called back to the office for a meeting. During that thirty-minute gap, something happened. We don’t know what. I need you to get there and see if you can figure it out. There’s a car waiting downstairs for you. Report back.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “This goes no further than you, me, and Agent Lewis. Understood?”

  “Understood.”

  Catherine poked her head in the room, “Everything okay?”

  “Tom Stewart has disappeared. Slipped his security detail. There’s somebody waiting downstairs to take us to his house.”

  “Do you think he’s on the run?”

  “I have no idea, but Senator Riggs wants us to find out.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Catherine darted through Travis’s room and they exited through Travis’s door together, striding quickly down the hallway for the elevator and emerging in the lobby a minute later. Out front, as promised, was a black sedan, a young woman sitting inside. As Travis opened the door, he glanced at the woman. Red hair, tied in a ponytail, wearing dark jeans, a T-shirt that read “Good Vibes,” and a light jacket over top. On her neck hung a badge. FBI. She glanced at Travis, “You Travis Bishop?”

  He nodded.

  “I’m FBI Agent Grace Laughlin. Senator Riggs’s office sent me. Let’s go.”

  As soon as Catherine closed the door, the black sedan took off. Grace looked at the two of them, “It’s a haul down to DC. Would take hours in the car. The FBI Director approved a helicopter so we’re headed to the helipad. The FBI chopper will get you there lickity-split quick. Once you land, there will be an agent on the other side to meet you.”

  Travis nodded. “Thanks.”

  “Sure enough.”

  Eighteen minutes later, after battling their way through early morning traffic in New York, Agent Grace Laughlin dropped them off in front of an office building without asking either of them why they were getting VIP treatment. Apparently, her orders had been not to ask. Travis didn’t offer and neither did Catherine. “Head to the twenty-second floor,” she said, leaning toward them as they got out. “The helipad’s up there. They're fueled and ready to go.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” Travis slammed the door to the sedan and then waved at Catherine to follow him. Getting in the elevator, he licked his lips, realizing he had no idea what they were doing. All he knew was Tom Stewart had disappeared and now Senator Riggs was pulling strings to have him help. Was the President involved? Questions pounded through Travis’s mind. Certainly by now, President Mosely knew Travis was on the hunt again, but the hunt for what? A CIA director that had gone off the rails? Tom’s meltdown still didn’t fully explain what was going on. Why the sudden escalation?

  As the elevator doors opened, Travis saw the helicopter down a short hallway beyond a double set of glass doors. He and Catherine emerged a second later, running toward the helicopter, the blades spinning slowly above them. The pilot was already in the cockpit, a blue-jacketed FBI agent waving them forward, “Bishop? Lewis?” The two of them nodded. “I’m Agent Holman. Let’s go.”

  Travis waited for Catherine to get in the helicopter and then followed, strapping the seatbelt over his shoulders and waist and then pulling on the headset as the helicopter lifted off the pad on the top of the building. He tried to find an angle to rest his aching ankle as he settled into his seat. It might be the only break they would get for a while. Agent Holman turned to look at them as they flew, speaking into the microphone positioned near his lips, “It’s a quick ninety-minute jaunt down to Virginia. We’ve got people on the ground. They’re waiting for you. Try to relax and enjoy the ride.”

  Yeah, right, Travis thought. Relaxing wasn’t exactly going to happen. If anyone knew he was on the helicopter, he could be looking down the tip of an M4 rocket launcher. As far as he knew, the bounty on his head was still active. Travis stared at Agent Holman, trying to push the thought of getting blown out of the sky out of his head. “Any idea what happened to Director Stewart?”

  “Sorry, sir. I’ve got nothing. Was told to get you down there ASAP. That’s it.”

  59

  The helicopter made good time and was able to land a little faster than the ninety-minute predicted travel time between New York and Tom Stewart’s lavish home in Virginia. From one of the few times Travis had been invited over, Travis remembered that Tom and Shelley Stewart’s house backed up to a golf course. Sure enough, they landed the black FBI helicopter on the manicured green of the seventh hole of the West Woods Golf Course, interrupting several early morning golfers and ticking off the grounds manager who drove away on his golf cart yelling expletives that could be heard clearly back at the clubhouse.

  Travis quickly shed the earphones and pulled off his seatbelt, jumping out of the helicopter. He waited for a second for Catherine to join him and they ran across the grass toward Tom Stewart’s house.

  At the edge of the yard, they met a tall FBI agent, one that moved like she almost had a career in the WNBA, but chose the FBI instead. She had a close crop of dark hair, matching ebony skin, and wide brown eyes. She leaned toward them, looking Travis at eye level, “You must be Bishop?”

  Travis nodded.

  “I’m Agent Regina Johnson. Nice to meet you.”

  Again, no questions about who they were or why they’d been sent. Travis pushed the thought away. Someone was keeping a lid on their involvement. “What do we have here?”

  Agent Johnson led them to the house, her loping stride eating up the space between the backyard and the side door. “We aren’t exactly sure, to be honest,” she said, ushering the two of them into the house and closing the door behind them. Travis sucked in a deep breath. He hadn’t been in Tom and Shelley’s house for probably close to seven years. Other than some minor redecorating, it looked about the same, everything tucked neatly into its place, the wide marble kitchen island taking up the majority of the kitchen, a smattering of appliances on the counter. It was a kitchen that was meant to be seen, not used. He refocused on Agent Johnson, “You’ll have to bring me up to speed here, and Agent Lewis too. We got a call from Senator Riggs. She told us to get down here, but she didn’t fill in a lot of the information other than Tom is missing.”

  Agent Johnson pointed a manicured orange fingernail to an agent who was working on a laptop sitting at the kitchen island, “Can you show them the video?”

  The young woman nodded, turning the screen toward Travis and Catherine. Agent Johnson spoke as it ran, “We got a call this morning that when the Capitol police came to do their shift change, Tom was gone. Capitol police handle all of the dignitary support for Senators. That’s why they were here. Double teaming Tom and Shelley. The officer who arrived noticed Tom’s car was still here, and the back door was ajar. It was at that point he called his superiors who called us. We pulled the surveillance video from the interior and exterior of the house, and this is what we saw…”

  Travis stared at the video in front of him as the FBI technician pressed play. It showed an image of Tom standing in his kitchen, dressed in slacks, a shirt, and a sports coat, as if he was ready to go to work, when something caught his attention. He walked to the side door and opened it. “It’s at this point we see two intruders enter the house,” Agent Johnson said, pointing at the screen.

  Travis continued to watch as the men quickly grabbed Tom’s arms, cable tying his wrists together and then shoving him out the door. Their movements were efficient and practiced; as if they had repeated the process hundreds if not thousands of times. Travis grimaced. The black-bearded men were professionals. Travis refocused on the video. The water Tom had been carrying ended up on the floor. Travis glanced at the side door. The broken glass was still there. It was the only evidence Tom had been in the house that morning.

  “Is that all you have?” Catherine frowned.

  “No, ma’am. Take a look at this,” Agent Johnson said.

  The tech switched views, “The exterior cameras captured this. They were in and out in less than two minutes” The video started again, showing Tom being pushed out to a waiting black van in the driveway, the door sliding shut almost immediately, and the van driving away.

  Travis shook his head. Whoever had taken Tom was clearly professional. They’d subdued him without any real resistance. That took training. “Any leads? Were you able to get the plates on the van?”

  Agent Johnson shook her head, “Unfortunately, no. The van did have plates on it, but there’s some sort of a coating on it that makes it impossible for our LPR’s to read.”

  Travis rubbed the stubble of beard on his face with his hand. He’d read an article recently online about LPR technology, or license plate readers. The author had said that the automated technology was only as good as the ability of the camera to capture the image. New counter-technology had been developed, a coating that obscured a camera's ability to capture anything other than the edges of the metal plate. “Any ransom demand? Anything?” Travis asked.

  “No. Nothing. He’s a ghost. That’s why you’re here.”

  60

  “Let’s split up and see what we can figure out,” Catherine said to Travis.

  “Sounds good.”

  Catherine left Travis and Agent Johnson in the kitchen while she walked through the house, getting the lay of the land first. It was the way her mind worked, looking for the larger framework of evidence and then setting the details of what she was looking at on top of it, much like draping a lace tablecloth over a table before setting the dishes on it. In her mind, the process made total sense. She walked into the master bedroom and noticed the bed was still rumpled, but only on one side. Going into the bathroom, she looked around, touching the towels. One of them was damp, the other one completely dry. She walked back out into the kitchen where Travis and Agent Johnson were huddled above the laptop, watching the abduction video again, “Where’s Tom’s wife?”

  “We're not exactly sure,” Agent Johnson frowned. “We think she might be out of town at a conference. I’ve got a call into her office, but I haven’t heard back from her Chief of Staff yet. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear something,” Johnson said, looking back at the computer.

  Catherine shook her head as she walked away. Strange that Senator Stewart’s own security detail didn’t know where she was.

  Catherine did another lap through the house, this time looking for more details. She stopped in what looked to be Tom and Shelley Stewart’s home office, still wondering where Shelley was. Shelley could be at a conference, traveling the state shaking hands and kissing babies, trying to garner support for one of her bills, or she could have very simply spent the night in DC. Catherine pressed her lips together. Certainly, the Capitol Police knew where she was. Must be a miscommunication, she thought. Most of the government officials she knew had homes in their district as well as homes in the capital as well. It seemed a fair assumption that Americans would operate in exactly the same way.

  Sitting down at the desk that was centered in front of a set of built-in bookcases, Catherine started opening drawers. There was the typical assortment of pens, pencils, paper clips, and rubber bands in the top drawer. In the next drawer down, there was a stack of legal pads and an envelope. Catherine pulled it out, looking at it. It was stuffed with small papers. Receipts. They all seemed to be from a gun range nearby, as though someone, either Tom or Shelley, was taking regular firearms lessons. Catherine grabbed the envelope and walked back into the kitchen, “Travis? Take a look at this,” she said, setting the envelope down in front of him.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s an entire envelope filled with receipts for a gun range. Was one of them a fan of firearms?”

  Travis shook his head, “I don’t know. Maybe Tom was trying to stay updated or blow off some steam. You know, being the director is a lot of headaches. It’s just like Archie’s job.”

  “Perhaps,” Catherine said, wandering back into the office and putting the envelope back where she’d found it. If that was the case, had Tom just been surprised by the attack? Anyone who had spent that much time at the range should have been better prepared, no? Catherine frowned and rummaged through the rest of the drawers, only finding random files that included things like their house insurance, car receipts, and a few bank statements. The desk was a dead end, but she knew there was something to be found. It just might not be at Tom Stewart’s house.

  On the desk was a laptop. Catherine opened it up and it whirred to life. She stared at the screen, waiting for a password to be requested, but none was. She frowned, “Not too secure for a senator and a CIA director,” she mumbled.

  After a few minutes of hunting on the laptop, she found nothing. The history revealed frequent searches to the local home improvement store, a few explorations for a new television, and videos of cats doing funny things. Typical, Catherine thought, closing the lid. The computer was barely used, as if it was one Tom and Shelley bought but let sit on the desk, only for shopping or entertainment. There was nothing interesting there.

  Frustrated, she got up from the computer and went back into the kitchen. Travis glanced at her as she walked back into the room, “Anything?” he asked.