Page 3 of Seal of Honor
Jacinto.
He had to get the driver’s attention.
Gasping, dizzy, Bryson crawled across the soft leather seat and pounded a weak fist on the partition. The tinted window slid down, and at first, he thought he was hallucinating. Huge bug eyes stared back at him. Some sort of insect now drove the car and—no, not an insect. Jacinto was wearing a gas mask.
Shit.
He collapsed face-first on the seat and turned his head to the side, staring through hazy eyes at the mini fridge across the car. He reached out a hand. Maybe there was something in there…
Something he could use to break out the window… Something…
“Tranquilo,” Jacinto said, his voice warped by the mask but still as friendly as ever. Like he was talking about a fútbol game. Or the traffic. Or the weather. “Let it happen, Señor Van Amee. Go to sleep now. I won’t hurt you. You’re worth too much money.”
* * *
DOMINICAL, COSTA RICA
Audrey watched her computer screen in horror as her brother’s face went slack, and his eyelids fluttered closed. The phone slipped out of his hand and sent her on a jarring ride to the floor of a limo. Or what she assumed to be a limo. She leaned closer to the screen, saw a curved ceiling, part of a black seat, and the toe of Bryson’s Italian loafer.
“Brys?”
Scrambling. A thump. The picture wobbled, and she caught disjoined glimpses of his face, a mini-fridge, the seat, and his face again.
“Aw-ree, eh nee…elp”
Her heart thundered blood through her ears, and she barely heard his mumbled whisper. She leaned closer. “What? What’s wrong?”
His face slipped away, and the picture tumbled into another jerky freefall. White shirt sleeve. Gold watch. White shirt sleeve. He must be crawling across the seat, still hanging onto the phone.
And then?—
Audrey leaped to her feet, her coffee splashing out of its mug, her chair crashing backward. Vaguely, she registered it knocking into her easel across the kitchen, heard the half-finished painting she’d been working on last night crash to the floor. But she didn’t give a damn. Her whole world centered on the computer screen, where a tinted partition slid down and a man in a gas mask told her brother that he was worth too much money.
The screen blanked.
No.
Audrey shook her head in denial and turned around in a slow circle. Her kitchen, with its eclectic mix of art and cooking supplies, looked exactly the same as it had when she woke up an hour ago. The coffee pot hissed as the last of the new pot brewed. Her dolphin-shaped cookie jar, which chirped like the dolphins that hung out by her dock when opened, grinned at her from the countertop. Sheet-wrapped paintings waited propped against the wall for their upcoming trip to San José.
All the same.
And yet, she must have just stepped into a surreal alternate dimension because everything felt wrong.
She refocused on her MacBook. The call had dropped, and the Facetime screen now showed only her own shocked, wide-eyed face with her list of recent calls running along the righthand side. Bryson’s name sat at the top of the list.
She straightened her chair, sat down, and tried to call him. The ringtone buzzed. And buzzed. And buzzed.
No answer. Would she like to retry the call?
She blinked back the tears burning her eyes and jabbed yes.
CHAPTER 2
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Gabe Bristow never thought he’d live to see his own retirement party. Never thought he’d have a retirement party if he did live that long, but this black-tie soiree was so typical of his mother. If Catherine Bristow couldn’t find an excuse to entertain, she made one up. Wedding? Throw a party. Funeral? Throw a party. Global disaster? Throw a party in the bomb shelter. Personal disaster? Throw a party and invite the who’s who of D.C. politics.
This forced medical retirement definitely qualified as a personal disaster in Gabe’s book, so of course every Tom, Dick, and Jane on Capitol Hill were arriving downstairs in their best monkey suits and gowns.
