The van drove slowly through the black iron gates, its driver accelerating once he’d emerged unscathed into the inner sanctum of the gated community. The code he’d been provided had worked, as he’d known it would, as it had for the past few days. How these people thought a gate and a code would keep the monsters of the outside world at bay was beyond him. But that wasn’t his concern. His job was simple—last-minute reconnaissance of the neighborhood before the operation began that night.

The dark blue Mercedes Amazon delivery van, a mobile fixture in suburbs across America, maintained its twenty-five-mile-per-hour speed as it drove along the shaded, tree-lined road. The woods were still relatively thick, only recently beginning to shed their summer skin of multicolored leaves. A cold front was approaching, and the winds of autumn would soon rattle the trees in relentless pursuit of uncovering the jagged, worn limbs. The street was the only way in or out of the community, although the driver knew a running path wound around the perimeter of the neighborhood, connecting the three residential streets and, in two locations, leading to the main road more than a mile away.

Shards of sunlight broke through the tall woodland canopy glinting off the hood of the van. It sure is peaceful, though. He shook his head to himself in a combination of disbelief and resignation at the fact that their target had brought the package to this quiet, secluded neighborhood in Virginia. Whoever had taken it knew that we would come looking for it. Why bring it here? How could someone be this stupid? These were questions he wasn’t paid to answer, and he refocused on the job.

Thirty seconds later, the van emerged into a clearing in the center of the community, revealing the scale of the suburban oasis that was Hidden Refuge, a name selected by the builder precisely because of the isolation, real or imagined, from the outside world and Washington, DC, to the east. The driver smiled to himself at the irony of the name. He knew better. There were no truly safe places in America today, no matter what the occupants of communities like this told themselves. He knew money bought a certain amount of self-delusion, and 99 percent of the time, that delusion would stand against the test of time. Unfortunately for the residents of Hidden Refuge, they’d unknowingly found themselves in the 1 percent. But that was their problem, not his.

The driver stopped at the stop sign and flipped on his right turn signal, looking left and then right. Nothing. Luxury also paid for a false sense of tranquility.