66

DSS HEADQUARTERS, ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

Pete sat alone in the office.

Staring at the phone, he still could not believe this was happening. He and Marcus had been best friends for as long as he could remember. They had been there for each other through the darkest of times—through his own brutal divorce, through the murders of Marcus’s wife, Elena, and their son, Lars, through Marcus’s resignation from the Secret Service, and through the deaths of Nick Vinetti and so many other friends and colleagues. Now he was supposed to tell his best friend’s mother her son was missing in action?

Better him than someone who didn’t know the Rykers, Pete told himself. Still, he wished he could be there to tell Mrs. Ryker in person.

He could picture the house in Monument that Marcus had grown up in. The home Mrs. Ryker had paid off using the insurance money she had received after her husband—an Air Force fighter pilot—was shot down and killed over Iraq. The home where Marcus had saved his mother’s life when he was twenty-one. Pete knew all the family stories. He had been to that house countless times before. He had memories with these people that went back two decades, and it made this call all the more difficult.

Pete grabbed the receiver and dialed the home number. No one answered. He called again, but there was still no answer. No machine picked up; Pete knew Marcus’s mom despised them. So he called her mobile number.

Marjorie Ryker answered immediately.

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Ryker?”

“Yes?”

“It’s Pete Hwang. How are you?”

There was a pause. Pete heard her take a deep breath. But when the woman finally spoke, she did not seem surprised to hear his voice.

“To be honest, I’ve been better, Pete. But how are you?”

“About the same, ma’am. Look, you’ve no doubt heard the news, the ambush on the Lebanon border.”

“I have.”

“Then maybe you know why I’m calling.”

“Just tell me if he’s alive, Pete.”

“He is, ma’am—we know that for certain.”

“Praise God,” she exhaled.

“I’m calling you from DSS headquarters. I’ve been assigned to the crisis management task force, and I can tell you we are doing everything we possibly can to get Marcus and his team back home safe and sound.”

For the next few minutes, Pete walked through the notes that had been approved by Director Stephens, Secretary Whitney, and the head of the Diplomatic Security Service. The script was light on details and heavy on procedure—what to say and not say, why it was so important not to talk to the media, and so forth. Pete had been briefed that Tehran had put an enormous bounty on Marcus’s head. He did not, of course, pass that along to Mrs. Ryker.

The call only lasted about ten minutes. What impressed him most was how calm Marcus’s mother was. She did not burst into tears or collapse into hysterics. She did not ask a thousand questions she knew Pete could not or would not answer. The woman was a rock. Pete was not exactly surprised. He had seen her faith steady her through many a storm. Still, it moved him. Especially when she asked at the end of the call how his kids were doing and then if she could pray for him.

“Yes, ma’am,” Pete said. “I’d like that.”