“Nope,” he says with a bitter laugh. “I guess I was living totally in the dark in that family.”

“The odd thing is, Mark and Maura remember your mother being pregnant around that time, when they left Knoxville to move back to Virginia.”

“So what happened to that baby?”

“That’s a very good question.”

* * *

THE WAITING FOR something to happen was utter torture. Freddie was freezing, starving and exhausted. This totally sucked, especially because they had no control whatsoever over any part of this mission. It was being run by the West Virginia State Police, who were operating with an overabundance of caution in light of the fact that their person of interest was the FBI deputy director.

And as if there weren’t enough law enforcement officers here already, the Feds had shown up half an hour ago, demanding to know why their deputy director’s vacation home was surrounded by armed officers.

Thus, the standoff continued unabated in the fifth hour.

“How long are we going to stay here, Cap?” Gonzo asked, giving voice to Freddie’s most pressing question.

“I don’t know,” Malone said with a sigh. “It’s turned into a three-ring circus.”

Another half hour passed in eerie, tension-filled silence before the incident commander from the West Virginia State Police left his post to come talk to them. He was halfway across the snow-covered yard when a shot rang out, striking the officer and knocking him off his feet.

All hell broke loose, with people shouting and return fire shattering the silence.

The officer who’d been hit crawled across the snow to where Freddie and the others from the MPD dragged him to safety.

“Hit my vest,” the man said through gritted teeth. “I’m okay.”

They propped him up against their SUV. He reached for his shoulder mic to check in with his team.

“Tell them we want Jacoby alive,” Malone said.

The officer conveyed the message. His radio crackled to life.

“Do we have the green light to go in, Cap? We’ve got a clear line on the back of the cabin, and the shot came from the front.”

He looked up at Malone who nodded. “We’re not getting anywhere waiting him out,” Malone said.

“Go,” the captain said into the shoulder mic, grimacing with pain.

From their position, they couldn’t see the action, but they could hear it. Shattering glass, wood splintering, shouts, gunshots. The whole thing seemed to happen in slow motion, but it only took about thirty seconds from the order to the report they’d been waiting for:

“We’ve got him.”

A few minutes later, Dustin Jacoby was marched from the cabin in handcuffs and leg chains and delivered to them over vociferous objections from the shell-shocked Feds.

Freddie wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but Jacoby was smaller than he’d thought he would be—maybe five-ten with a lean build and graying dark hair.