The next few minutes passed in silence as the Suburban’s headlights cut a path through the darkness. The road out here was narrow and thickly wooded, the kind that made you worry about deer, for both your sake and theirs. Copley had a heavy foot, but always seemed well in control of the vehicle.

As they rounded a wide left-hand turn, the radio exploded to life with the baritone voice of a newscaster. The sound startled them all, to the point that Copley jerked the wheel and almost wandered off into the ditch on the right.

“Jesus!” McCrea shouted as he leaned forward to spin the volume knob down. “Holy crap! I guess we’re out of the blackout area.”

As McCrea spoke, both his and Copley’s cell phones buzzed.

“You keep driving,” McCrea ordered. “I’ll check mine, and then yours if you think it’s important.” The glow of his smartphone bathed his face in a blue light as he scrolled through the messages on his phone. All of them were bad.

“How come he gets to keep his phone, but we had to give ours away?” Caleb protested.

“Now’s not the time,” Victoria said. She watched the major’s expression darken as he scrolled. “What’s wrong?”

McCrea said, “Somebody tipped the media. The secret’s out.”

Victoria’s stomach cramped.

“What does that mean?” Luke asked. “What secret is out?”

McCrea’s eyes never left his screen as he explained. “I don’t know all the details. We’ve been in such a news desert the past few hours. But from what I can tell, some little internet rag of a news outlet posted that the Hilltop Manor was on a lockdown, and that members of the House and Senate were flooding in. I guess they put two and two together and pushed it out as a news story.”

“Totally irresponsible,” Copley said.

“What time is it now?” Victoria asked. “Four in the morning? Who’s reading news feeds at four in the morning?”

“Just about everybody on the other side of the Pond, apparently,” McCrea said.

Victoria regretted asking such a stupid question. “Which news source are you reading?” she asked.

“This is a Pentagon feed,” McCrea explained. “Iran has upped its readiness status. Lots of ugly things are being said.” He looked at Victoria. “If this is going to go hot, it’s going to go hot soon.”

“I sense that you’re trying to tell me something that I’m not hearing.”

“I think I’m telling you it was a mistake not to take your place in the bunker.”

Both of the boys straightened in their seats at that.

“Let’s try to be helpful with our comments, Major,” Victoria scolded.

McCrea ignored her. This seemed like a stupid-ass time to worry about sheltering your kids from bad news. “First Sergeant, head for the mines. We’ll take our chances there.”