by Jeff Abbott
All the computers were gone. Nanny’s office looked like a flamethrower had doused it. The four skulls remained on the cafeteria wall and Mila saw them and she turned to me. She was not a person given to strong emotion, but I saw tears in her eyes and she took my hand and said, “Oh, Sam. I will not sleep tonight, thinking of you in this place.”
“You will not sleep tonight because we’re in the middle of the jungle and there’s no hotel.” We did have a helicopter, so I would have an easier departure than last time. “Okay, you’ve seen it.” I loosened my hand from hers and walked away, running the flashlight toward the exit.
“Edwin said there was a room called ‘Archives,’” she said.
“Yes. Near where we followed the water pipe out.” I took her down the stairs. The flashlight showed me old bloodstains where I’d shot a guard. I tried not to think of those who’d died as I’d gotten Edwin and the others out to freedom. I still slept at night, but my recent dreams were tattered and bloody and I knew my brain was processing it, like a soldier home from battle. I wanted to turn off that part of me. But what would I be then, what kind of father would I be to Daniel? I had to be a man, not a monster.
The door to the archives had been blown off its hinges. “They threw in explosives,” she said. “Small ones. A hurried job.”
“I wonder why not the flamethrowers if they wanted to burn all the records,” I said.
“Because they weren’t allowed in here. Whoever was sent here didn’t have the clearance for the information. They didn’t want to risk it being seen. Or read. Or they took most of it before they left. We can’t know.” She sounded disappointed.
There were file cabinets, shattered from the blasts, the former files now cinders. Mila studied the room. Letters on the file cabinets, with an S–Z closest to the door. And then she went to the file cabinet farthest from the door, farthest from the blast. The cabinet had toppled over, blackened, one drawer ajar and filled with ashes.
“We might be lucky,” she said. She took a crowbar and opened the top drawer, and inside were partially burned papers.
“What are you hoping to find? You said you’d explain once we got here, Mila.” Only the fact that I trusted her more than anyone else in the world had persuaded me to come back to this hellhole.
“You said the Italian guard here claimed you reminded him of someone, joked that you were a repeat offender. You said Cori’s friend at the casino, Magali, said a man who redeemed a casino chip looked like you. I am wondering.” From the cabinet she pulled out a sheaf of crisped papers. Most were burned, but the edges of an inch-thick wad were yellowed but intact. She paged through them, gently.
I looked at the label on the cabinet: A–D. “Are you looking for someone?”
She answered me by holding up a page and I saw the name at the top left, sliced and burned, the letters read CAPR. Below was a thumbnail-sized photo of my brother, looking scared and gaunt. A side-profile photo of him, Doc’s bandage visible on the back of his neck, the rest of the photo burned away.
Below the photo was a date stamp.
Three weeks after he’d been killed in Afghanistan, his throat cut on a grainy video by jihadists.
“I…that can’t be.” I felt the world around me begin to swim, to shake.
He was here. Danny was here, at some point. Danny was…alive. But he hadn’t been here when I was.
There was one prisoner they let go…I remembered the Hungarian’s words.
So where was he?
“Sam?” Mila asked. “Sam? Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I said. “I want to tear this place apart. I want to find my brother.”
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Mitch Hoffman, Lindsey Rose, Jade Chandler, Jamie Raab, David Shelley, Ursula Mackenzie, Sonya Cheuse, Andrew Duncan, Deb Futter, Emi Battaglia, Beth deGuzman, Anthony Goff, Thalia Proctor, David Palmer, Marissa Sangiacomo, Jane Lee, and all the amazing teams at Grand Central Publishing and Little, Brown UK.
As always, thanks to Peter Ginsberg, Shirley Stewart, Jonathan Lyons, Holly Frederick, Eliane Benisti, Kerry D’Agostino, and Sarah Perillo for their brilliance.
For special help and amazing generosity in Miami I am very grateful to Paige Pennekamp McClendon, Marianne Fernandez, Michael Pennekamp (who can talk his way past any guardpost), Mitchell Kaplan of the wonderful Books & Books bookstores in south Florida, James and Evelyn Hall, and the ever-patient Bella Pennekamp.
My wife, Leslie, is a huge help to me in researching the books (especially during travel to Miami and Puerto Rico) and in keeping me steady during the difficult parts of the process. She and my sons, Charles and William, are the best family a writer could ask for. Thank you.
Any bending of geography, governmental entities, or facts for the sake of the story, or errors, are my responsibility.
About the author
Jeff Abbott is the New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of fourteen novels. His books include the Sam Capra thrillers Adrenaline, The Last Minute, and Downfall, as well as the standalone novels Panic, Fear, and Collision. The Last Minute won an International Thriller Writers Award, and Jeff is also a three-time nominee for the Edgar Award. He lives in Austin with his family. You can visit his website at www.jeffabbott.com.
Also by Jeff Abbott
Sam Capra series
Adrenaline
The Last Minute
Downfall
Whit Mosley series
A Kiss Gone Bad
Black Jack Point
Cut and Run
Other fiction
Panic
Fear
Collision
Trust Me
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
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Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Jeff Abbott
Newsletters
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Jeff Abbott
Cover design by Flag
Cover copyright �
� 2014 by Hachette Book Group
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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ISBN 978-1-4555-2846-2
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