As a retired general, Rocky Bridger had several friends who owned helicopters. He was able, on short notice, to get one of them to chopper him down to Manhattan. They located a helipad within a block of the Palace Hotel.
During their two-hour wait for Rocky to arrive, Joshua and Abigail remained frozen in the hotel room, sitting next to Joshua’s Allfone.
But no call came in.
Then Abigail turned to Joshua and made a surprising suggestion.
“You wanted Rocky here,” she began, “so that he could help us figure out the practical logistics of this horrible situation. And I agreed. But now I also want someone else here to help me figure something out.”
“Figure out what?”
“The spiritual logistics,” she said. “I need Pastor Paul Campbell here with me.”
“Abby, is that really necessary?” Joshua unloaded. He had been mentally consumed by Cal’s situation and how he might be rescued. Joshua didn’t need outside interference. “We need to keep this to a small circle of people we can trust.”
“Which is why I need my pastor here. He’s trustworthy.”
“Look, this is no place for a pastor. We’re wading into war here—”
“Then consider him a battlefield chaplain. This is the scariest thing we’ve ever faced. Even worse than your spy-plane missions. This is our son’s life we’re talking about. Our son…The decisions we make right here could either save him or kill him. Please, Josh, please understand…”
That’s when Rocky Bridger buzzed their hotel suite and said he was on his way up.
Joshua turned to Abigail. His beautiful wife’s face was twisted with emotion. She was a smart woman, but more than that she had a habit of being right about things that she was the most passionate about.
“Okay,” Joshua said to Abigail. “Call Pastor Campbell. Tell him only that we have an urgent personal matter to discuss with him, and we need him over here. But he can’t tell anyone where he’s going or why.”
She smiled and wiped her tears away with the back of her hand.
Then Joshua made the point again. “I hope that guy keeps his mouth shut.”
The doorbell rang, and Rocky Bridger was standing in the doorway. Abigail greeted him with a long hug, thanked him for coming, and then scurried past him on her way down to the hotel business center to call Pastor Campbell.
As Joshua reached his hand out it suddenly struck him that Rocky looked shorter and older as the two men clasped hands firmly and just stood there for a few long moments.
They studied the anguish in each other’s eyes. Rocky had just lost a son-in-law, and he had come from a house where he had been trying to comfort his heartbroken daughter and his granddaughter. Joshua’s son was now being held hostage—his life hanging by a thread. And it appeared clear that those two tragic attacks were related. They were both tied to Joshua’s RTS technology. This was a toll that Joshua had not counted on.
Joshua briefed him again, this time in detail, about the information from the Liberty University security staff and then what the hostage taker had said on the phone.
“And the kidnapper hasn’t contacted you further?” Rocky asked.
“No. He just said to wait for his call.”
“Let’s be straight here, Josh, I’m no expert in hostage situations. You know that…”
“That’s not how I remember it. That situation with that downed pilot in Ecuador who was captured by FARC rebels—you managed to get that guy rescued pretty smoothly…”
“I had a whole lot of help…”
“You’re still the best man in a crisis I’ve ever known.”
“Well, then are you willing to take some advice from this old general?”
“You know I am.”
“You need to spread your net a little wider.”
“How?”
“I know you’re concerned that someone has been helping this criminal.”
“He’s got to be plenty connected. I heard from my Patriot friend that foreign interests were after me because of RTS. And we figure that this lunatic tortured your son-in-law to get information about my family. Then he takes my son. The breadcrumbs stretch from my son’s college dormitory room all the way across the planet to some unknown international terrorists who are probably orchestrating this.”
“I’m not exactly saying we ought to call the FBI and report a kidnapping…”
“Then what?”
“It’s like the 9/11 scenario,” Rocky said. “Failure to coordinate intelligence sources can be disastrous. I think we need to bring in that guy you sent me to—Gallagher. He seems to be working this from the other direction. He’s trailing a suspect, and he doesn’t know where he will hit next. Gallagher just knows that it points in your direction. This could be the link.”
“And what if he feels obliged to run this up the command, and it leaks out to the kidnappers’ contacts—whoever they are—that’s a chance I don’t think we can take.”
“All I know is that after talking to Agent John Gallagher, I had this feeling.”
“About what ?”
“I’ve spent my whole career taking and giving orders,” Rocky said. “A lot of order taking way back at the beginning. Then you get your stripes, and later some stars and ribbons, and finally you’re giving more orders than you have to take. But it all comes down to chain of command. I recognized that tone when I spoke to Agent Gallagher. The guy’s not exactly following orders—not to the letter—but he’s still trying not to buck it either. But he’s way out there at the outer perimeter. With his toes on the edge of the cliff.”
“So, you think we need to bring him in?”
“Yes. I think he knows who murdered Roger. I also think he’ll have an idea who your kidnapper is. Likely the same scum did both. Gallagher has the big picture—unlike the local detectives who interviewed me. Gallagher knows a lot; I’d bank my retirement on it.”
“Then the question is—will the kidnapper find out?”
“What if he does?”
“No, no, then he kills Cal…”
“Maybe not.”
“I can’t even take that risk.”
“Cal may be at the same risk whether you contact Gallagher or not.”
“But I have to go with what I know. The caller says don’t contact the police or the FBI.”
“But if Gallagher is out there on the perimeter, like I think he is, maybe he’s pursuing this on a discrete channel, in a sequestered way,” Rocky said, “in which case the chances are less that our hostage creep will find out. And if this is the same monster who killed Roger…then I want Agent Gallagher to know what we know. I want Roger avenged as much as I know you want Cal to be saved.”
“You really think we can risk bringing Gallagher into this?” Joshua asked again. His eyes were closed as he tried to calculate the incalculable, picturing his son on a sacrificial slab. One wrong move and the blade goes down and the blood starts flying.
“Yes, I do,” Rocky said. There wasn’t a shred of hesitation.
“And I agree.”
Joshua opened his eyes and saw Abigail standing at the entrance of the great room of their hotel suite.
“I think Agent Gallagher has proven himself so far, whoever he is,” she said. “We need outside help on this. We can’t ensure Cal’s safety just ourselves. This kidnapper has already killed Roger. Maybe others we don’t know about. And once he gets what he wants from you, Josh, there’s no guarantee he’ll let Cal go.”
“So, we’re talking calculated risks…with our son’s life,” Joshua said.
“That’s all we’ve got to go on,” Rocky said.
Abigail added her own thought.
“That…and the power of prayer.”
Joshua looked into the eyes of his wife. Underneath her pain and fear, she still had a kind of quietude, and it shocked him to his core. He glanced over at Rocky. But a thought had been plaguing Joshua from the beginning, hanging in the shadows, and now it came tumbling into the open.
He dug into his pocket and retrieved the card from the Patriot, Pack McHenry.
But before he could say what was on his mind, he was diverted by a distinctive sound.
He turned around to look right at the spot where his Allfone was lying.
It was ringing.