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  67. 3:46 a.m.

The terrorist paused and glanced over his shoulder at both Billy and Sullivan.

Ingrid could feel both men’s unease. They knew the clock on their lives was ticking down.

There was a soft crashing noise and the three terrorists stiffened and looked around at one another.

“Just another day in Sandland,” Welds said in reference to the bomb or missile strike.

The terrorist recovered, turned back toward the camera, and said, “To save your President and this other man, America has until noon two days from now, Iraqi time, to pull all soldiers from Iraq. If you comply, we will return your President unharmed. If you do not, we will send him back in pieces.”

The video cut out.

::::

“Noon, two days from now, Iraqi time?” asked Natalie. “What does that translate to here in Washington?”

“Sandland is eight hours ahead,” Welds replied.

“So that would be 4:00 a.m. two days from now,” quipped Natalie. “4:00 a.m on Wednesday.”

Ingrid checked her phone.

5:56 a.m.

She said, “That gives us forty-six hours.”

“To what?” Welds asked incredulously. “To pull four thousand troops out of Iraq. Logistically, that would be close to impossible, not to mention that we don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

“I meant—” Ingrid said, “—that we have forty-six hours to find them.”

::::

Billy pulled in a long breath through his nose. It was hard to breath with the gag in his mouth. But at least he was alive, a fate he hadn’t been certain about a couple hours earlier. When he felt the terrorist rest the knife — a long Bedouin dagger — against his throat, he was sure he was headed to meet his maker.

In that moment, he found himself silently muttering Our Father, a prayer beaten into him when he was a little boy attending Catholic school.

Billy gazed at the President across the room, or cave, or wherever it was they were being held.

After the men burst through the front door at Henry’s father’s, then gunned Red and his captain down, Billy expected to take a bullet himself.

But he hadn’t.

But not for lack of trying. When they attempted to zip-tie him, he made a go for one of the terrorist’s guns. He got his hand around the barrel, but wasn’t able to do anything before he took a hard kick to the gut.

Again, he expected a bullet.

Again, it hadn’t come.

Then Ingrid, her parents, and all the others were marched to the basement. Billy assumed he would join them, but instead of being ushered downstairs, one of the terrorists put a rag over his nose and mouth.

Chloroform, he guessed.

He came to a couple times, a hood over his eyes. Once he thought he was in a car, another time, an airplane. But each time he twitched awake, within seconds the rag would find its way under his hood and three breaths later, the darkness would close in.