Then Pelayo lowers his clenched hand with the torch down and—

A lick of flame from the surface of the sun reaches out and laps his arm.

He screams in absolute and bone-crushing pain.

He’s on the floor, sobbing, crying, holding his left arm, shaking all over, his arm shaking the worst, like an exposed tree limb being hit by a strong breeze. He hears another scream and it’s his daughter, and in a sluggish way he thinks, Little girl, what are you screaming about? I’m the one who’s just been burnt.

There’s an acrid smell in the room, of burnt hair and flesh, and he grits his teeth, howling, still holding his wrist up, and then rolls over and vomits up his last meal, whatever the hell that was. Through a fog he hears voices and he’s being moved around and checked and probed, and his little girl is still screaming, and in the thickness of it all, he wants to shout out, Go away! All of you, go away!

He’s picked up and dropped on the other bed. His vision is gray, and his mouth tastes like old nickels, and his arm, his arm, oh my God, his arm, and a man grabs his hair and tugs him back, and Pelayo says slowly and carefully, “You’ve learned a lesson, my friend. Don’t try to escape again. Don’t try to fight me. Don’t try to resist. Don’t make me repeat this lesson, for if I do, your little girl will be the one receiving it.”

Voices, then he hears the distant click of a door being opened, and then the sound of metal hitting metal as the door is slammed shut. He grits his teeth again as the pain continues to throb along his wrist and forearm and right to the base of his brain, one big throb at a time, like a slow wave of hot lava, moving like it’s controlled by the tides.

“Daddy, Daddy,” Denise says, sobbing, and now the guilt collapses over him and he takes a deep breath, and another, and he rolls over, trying to hide his wrist from his little girl, and in a shaky voice says, “You just stay there, all right? Don’t come over here. Just stay there.”

She sobs again. “Daddy, what can I do? What can I do?”

He closes his eyes. His girl is still one brave cookie, bless her.

The pain grows and grows along his forearm, and he lets out a low, heavy moan.

Tom grits his teeth. “Stay brave, hon. Stay brave. Do that for me…and your mother. All right?”

She sobs for another moment, and says, “Daddy?”

“Yes, hon?” God, the pain, the pain…

“I want Mommy to kill him.”

He almost smiles at the determined voice of his young sweetie.

“Me, too, hon. Me, too.”

CHAPTER 42

SPECIAL AGENT Rosaria Vasquez steps out of her car as she sees the young Army officer, Lieutenant Preston Baker, walk away from his rusted red Nissan Sentra to the front door of the apartment complex he lives in, nearly an hour away from Fort Belvoir. Scanning the sad-looking two-story structure that has its siblings scattered around beyond distant parking lots, she sees the entire story of the place. The house was slapped up in a hurry when Fort Belvoir expanded years ago, meeting minimum building codes and using cheap lumber and materials, and the roof is now peeling shingles, the clapboards are warped and shedding paint, and the front lawns—which should have been maintained over the years by the property owners—are merely trampled-down dirt decorated with swing sets, barbecue stations, and broken toys.