Chapter 1 - “THEY’RE OUTSIDE AGAIN”
I was five thousand miles from home when my wife whispered:
“Blake… they’re outside again.”
Rain hammered the canvas roof of our operations tent.
I stood immediately.
For three weeks, Emily had been telling me about a black sedan parked across from our house outside Richmond, Virginia.
Then a sheriff’s cruiser began appearing.
Someone followed her from the grocery store.
Two days later, she found a note beneath her windshield wiper.
STOP ASKING QUESTIONS.
I had told her to report everything.
She did.
Nothing happened.
Now her breathing was ragged through the phone.
“Call 911.”
“I already did.”
“What happened?”
“They transferred me to the sheriff’s department.”
My stomach tightened.
Then Emily whispered:
“There’s already a cruiser outside.”
“Emily, lock yourself upstairs.”
“Maybe they came to help.”
“No.”
I didn’t know why I said it so quickly.
Instinct.
“Lock the bedroom. Push the dresser against the door.”
Then came three slow knocks downstairs.
“Sheriff’s department!”
Emily stopped breathing.
“Blake?”
“Don’t open it.”
A second later, wood exploded.
Men shouted.
Boots hit the stairs.
I heard furniture scraping.
Then the bedroom door broke inward.
“BLAKE!”
A terrible crack came through the phone.
Emily screamed.
Another crack.
Then laughter.
I shouted her name until the call died.
For two hours, I called everybody I could.
County dispatch claimed no incident had been logged at our address.
The sheriff’s office told me to stop tying up emergency lines.
Finally, St. Jude’s Medical Center answered.
“Your wife is alive.”
My knees nearly gave out.
Then the nurse started crying.
“Both legs have multiple fractures.”
Before I could speak, somebody approached her.
“You can’t be back here, sir.”
A man laughed.
The phone changed hands.
“You Blake?”
“Who are you?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
His voice was amused.
“Your wife was tougher than I expected.”
My hand closed around the edge of the table.
Then he whispered:
“She walks funny now, soldier.”
Someone in the background ordered him to leave.
He laughed again.
“My father owns the police.”
The call ended.
I already knew the name.
Cameron Voss.
Billionaire’s son.
And three weeks earlier, Emily had watched him assault a young woman inside a parking garage.
She called police.
The victim initially agreed to testify.
Then suddenly withdrew everything.
That was when someone began watching our house.
Twenty minutes later, I stood in Brigadier General Marcus Hale’s tent.
He looked through Emily’s photographs.
Cruiser numbers.
License plates.
The threatening note.
Then he looked at me.
“You’re going home.”
I swallowed.
“Sir—”
“That isn’t permission.”
He slid emergency leave paperwork across the desk.
“It’s an order.”
Then his voice hardened.
“But Blake?”
“Yes, sir?”
May you like
“You’re going home to your wife.”
Not to start another war.
