But it had worked, at least so far. His reckless gamble had paid off — or would, if he could hear the voices of his family. As long as they survived, he had a reason to play along with their abductors. And the moment that he doubted their survival, as he had informed their captor, then he would have nothing left to lose.

There was a muffled rustling as the other telephone was lifted, passed from hand to hand. Something broke inside him at the sound of Helen's voice as she pronounced his name.

"Hal? Are you there?"

"I'm here."

She heard his pain and longed to reach for him, to clasp his big hands tightly in her own and make him smile. For now, though, it would have to be enough to hear his voice and answer when he spoke to her.

"Are you all right? The kids?"

"We're fine." The lie caught in her throat. "We miss you."

"Jesus, Helen..."

"Hal, be careful."

Even as she spoke, the blond was reaching out to twist the telephone receiver from her trembling hands. His face was livid as he snarled into the mouthpiece.

"There, you satisfied?"

From where she sat, Hal's answer was inaudible, but Helen could guess the content from the furious expression on her captor's face.

"Forget it, Jack. You've wasted too much time already with this bullshit."

Another momentary silence as he listened, and his face had grown so dark that Helen thought he might be on the verge of apoplexy.

"Shit!" He held the telephone away and swiveled toward the nearest ape, on station at the bedroom door. "Bring out the others, Gino."

"Huh?"

"I said bring out the frigging others. Are you deaf, or what?"

"I hear you, man."

"Then move your ass."

The thug looked sullen as he moved to do his boss's bidding, reemerging in a moment with Eileen and Jeff. He herded them in the direction of the telephone and waited, watching, as they each communicated with their father in the fleeting time allotted. Jeff went first, projecting grim bravado, glaring at the blond with hatred in his eyes while listening to Hal. Eileen, in turn, could barely speak at all. Fresh tears were glistening on her cheeks, and she avoided looking at her captors, whispering for Hal to please take care and watch himself. She was her father's daughter, after all, and she would not allow herself to break while he was listening.

"That's it," the blond announced as he reclaimed the phone. "You wanna talk to anybody else, call Dial-a-Prayer. And keep the number handy while you're at it, guy. You try an' fuck me over on this deal, your little family's gonna need some prayers."

He banged the telephone receiver down and spent a moment glaring at the silent instrument, as if it might be thinking of another way to challenge his authority. When he was satisfied that he had finally achieved the final word, he turned again to Gino.

"I'm goin' out a while, to see some people, eh? Get Carmine in here an' the two of you keep both eyes open. I don't want no fuck-ups while I'm gone."

The ape looked bored.

"Bring back some burgers, will ya?''

"Yeah, don't worry. Just remember what I said. No fuck-ups."

"Stop worrying, for Chrissake."

"I get paid to worry."

After he had gone, the import of his words hit home to Helen. He had called his two companions by their given names, uncaring that she might have heard him. That presented her with two alternatives: the names were either aliases, which struck her somehow as unlikely, or the blond had no concern that she would later be in a position to identify his comrades. And with sudden, chilling certainty, she realized that there was only one way, to ensure her silence.

He did not intend to let them live.

When he was finished with her husband — sooner, if he could persuade Hal to proceed without the reassurance of a phone call — they would be eliminated. Having served their purpose, they became disposable.

The prospect of a violent death had haunted Helen's dreams for years, but in relation to her husband, sometimes to her children. Hal had placed himself in killing situations countless times, and all his reassurances had failed to put her mind at ease, although she had become adept at hiding what she felt. In later years, as she had watched their children grow, the fears had broadened to encompass Jeff and Eileen. There were so many terrors in the world outside her home, which ranged from lethal accidents and drunken drivers to the random, senseless violence now pervasive in America. A child, especially a girl-child, was constantly at risk.

But Helen had harbored no concerns about herself until this moment, realizing now that she was marked to die. It was the rough equivalent, she thought, of having a physician look you in the eye and solemnly inform you that your tests were positive, the lump was malignant and your hours were numbered. But an illness could be treated, life extended artificially through chemotherapy and, in the last extremity, by hardware. In her present circumstance, there was no treatment to prescribe, no possibility of a remission.

It would take a miracle to save them now, and Helen's faith would not admit the possibility of intervention from an outside source. If there were any miracles, they would be manufactured by her husband... and she wondered for the first time in their married life if Hal was equal to the task.

For Jeff's sake, for Eileen's, she hoped that he could pull it off. There was so much of life in store for each of them, so much ahead, if they were only given half a chance.

If not, there might be something she could do herself, provided that an opportunity arose. And if all else failed, she knew she would be forced to try.

It was a mother's instinct to defend her young at any cost. While life remained they had a chance, and she would not surrender meekly to the fate these bastards had in store. Whatever else they wanted from her family, they would have to take by force.

Brognola didn't waste a moment cleaning out his desk. The photographs of Helen and the kids were stowed inside his briefcase when he left the office, as were certain documents selected from the jumbled ruin of his files, but the rest was standard issue, items he could say goodbye to without regret. If he returned at some point in the future, everything would be there, and if not...

He found that job security, pension, carried little weight where the survival of his loved ones was concerned. If he was finally suspended, fired — if he was ultimately jailed on manufactured evidence — Brognola knew that he could live with it, provided that his wife and children were protected, safe. If they were harmed in any way, if he could find the sons of bitches who had damaged any one of them, the charges filed against him would extend beyond the fine points of corruption and into homicide.

If he could find the sons of bitches.

And he was working on a lead already, something he had picked up on the telephone. When he demanded evidence that Helen and the kids were safe, the caller had relied on someone else to fetch them, and he had called the second man by name. Though muffled, the name had sounded very much like Dino, Gino — something on those lines. It wasn't much — there had to be at least ten million guys with either of those names — but at least it was a start. He could tap into the computer, run a list of names, cross-indexed to the orgcrime files, and see what filtered out.

At least he would be doing something while he waited on the call from Leo, telling him that Striker was in town. There was a possibility that Bolan would not come. If he was caught up in a campaign, if Turrin couldn't reach him, if the enemy had finally tagged him in that endless, lethal game of hide and seek... God knew the soldier had sufficient problems of his own without Brognola heaping another burden on his shoulders.