He had gotten off the phone with his father just minutes ago. His father, eighty-nine-year-old Sylvester Barrett, had spent his life growing the family oil business that his own father had founded. He was a tough man.

“Bury them,” his father said. “Make them pay. Every stinking last one of them.”

She’s my daughter, Dad.

That’s what he wanted to say. Couldn’t he understand that? His daughter had been kidnapped. He loved her so much—it was like a piece of himself had been taken. If he could be taken in her stead, he would do it. In a heartbeat. No hesitation at all.

I love her. I am dying inside.

But you didn’t say things like that to Sylvester Barrett.

If anything, the conversation with his wife had gone even worse. She simply wept over the phone line, and he couldn’t think of a single thing to say that might comfort her. He stood there with a lump in his throat, his face turning red as the woman he loved began shrieking at him.

“I’m going to get her back,” he croaked, before hanging up the phone. It was the only thing he could think of.

The elevator opened into the egg-shaped Situation Room. It was super-modern, set up for maximum use of the space, with large screens embedded in the walls every couple of feet, and a giant projection screen on the far wall at the end of the table.

Except for David’s own seat, every plush leather seat at the table was occupied—overweight men in suits, thin and ramrod-straight military men in uniform. A man in a dress uniform stood at the far head of the table. Richard Stark.

David didn’t care for Richard Stark. But right now, he didn’t care much for anyone. Maybe Stark would throw him a lifeline in this desperate moment—stranger things had happened.

He sat down in the chair reserved for the President.

The room suddenly went quiet. David knew that he was renowned for his anger and his tirades—many of his closest aides didn’t like him. He knew that about himself, and it was another thing he had never cared about. He was a Barrett, after all. If they all quieted down right now, it was because they were afraid of what he would say if they didn’t. A crisis was on, and he was inches from an all-consuming rage.

“Okay, Richard,” he said. “Never mind the introductions, never mind the niceties and the preliminaries. Just tell me some good news.”

Stark slipped a pair of black reading glasses onto his face. He looked down at the sheets of paper in his hand.