The gag in her mouth prevented her from speech or swallowing. Desert dryness coated her tongue, making her hunger for water. The sound of rain pounding the roof of the moving vehicle almost made her laugh. If not for the gag, she would have. A torrential downpour outside and not one drop for her to drink.

Eyes closed, she tried to make sense of the past two days. How had she gotten here? One minute she was stepping out of a cab to represent her father at a scientific awards ceremony, the next she was here. From the dialect she'd heard, her captors sounded Asian. An eerie sensation in the pit of her stomach suggested she wasn't in the States any longer. Somehow they'd managed to smuggle her out. But to where? And why?

Then it hit her. An image flashed inside her brain of a recent news break she'd watched. North Korea… oh God, had she been taken by the North Koreans? The vehicle halted. Rain still poured outside. The doors opened and shut on the vehicle's front. Somewhere close, another door opened. Heavy footsteps fell. Allie strained to hear, but couldn't decipher the voices. Did they know the truth?

Inhaling deep through her nostrils didn't ease the sudden knot in her chest. It only managed to fill her lungs with stale air and induced the need to cough. Fear gripped her system, but she refused to relinquish command to such weakness. She needed strength to think straight. Focusing on her father, she gathered a calm from deep within her soul and willed her senses to right. Think, she reprimanded. How could they have discovered she was the driving force behind her father's ideas? No one knew. She'd made certain over the past few years to cover their family secret from scrutiny. He'd fallen apart when Mother died. To protect her father's reputation, she stepped into her mother's shoes as his assistant and helped keep his gifted intelligence on track.

No one knew she'd done more than assist. She worked closely with him on this latest system. Being the daughter of a genius had its perks and its downfalls. As a child, she'd hated being the smartest kid in class, so her parents shielded her from the hurt and homeschooled her. Through a variety of online colleges, she earned several different masters degrees, one of which was nuclear physics. There wasn't a schematic in this guidance system she didn't understand since she helped create the design.

There's no way the Koreans knew. She made Father promise not to state the extent of her participation in this project in his documentation. The memory of that disagreement brought momentary joy to her heart. He wanted to share acknowledgement of the accomplishment with her, but she refused, convincing him her time to shine in the scientific world would eventually come. She wanted him to remain billed as one of America's top scientists until the day he died and she didn't care how much of her work went into keeping him at the top. In truth, she feared losing him. He guided and pushed her forward, urged her to propel into new venues of science. Without him…

Allie bit against the gag in her mouth hoping to somehow chew through it, but couldn't. Each movement of her hands dug the binding deeper into her wrists, instead of loosening it. There had to be a way to escape. She needed to get back to her father and make sure he was safe. Without him, she'd be lost and alone. Together, they were a brilliant team. Moisture coated her cheek as a tear rolled from the corner of her eye. He was all she had left.

Her eyes widened as the thought struck. Did they have him, too?

Panic thrashed her system. She had to get out of here and find him. He had to be safe. Breathe, she reminded herself. Now was not the time to hyperventilate. In, out, slow and easy, she forced herself to inhale and exhale until her nerves settled. If her father were in danger, she'd need her wits about her to think things through and get them out of here.

Allie lay still listening to the rain and straining to hear the voices of her captors. Male, distinctively male. A loud grate of metal upon metal broke the air. The vehicle's rear doors opened. Cool wind blew in, causing her to shiver. A foreign tongue echoed as a hand clasped her ankle. With no regard to her safety or comfort, he dragged her across the floor to the door. Bumped and bruised, she managed to hold her head up to prevent it from bouncing on the hardness, desperately trying to prevent being knocked unconscious.

Cold steel touched her skin and she stilled. Tightness left her ankles the moment he sliced the ropes. One shoe on and one shoe off, they dragged her from the van to stand. Silence filled her ears, echoed by the steady beat of rain on the ground. The canvas bag blocked her view. She sensed several stood around her as she struggled on stiff legs to remain upright. The rip of cloth, the sensation of material parting and the occasional nick of the blade made her fully aware they removed the burlap shroud. Blinking, she held her head down until her eyesight adjusted. A fist in her hair jerked her head upward shooting stars behind her eyes. Shifting her weight to her bare foot, Allie attacked the assailant's knee with the other still sporting a six-inch black leather stiletto.

The sudden release of her hair and his simultaneous howl granted her a brief instant of freedom. Running haphazardly, she dodged two men before another tackled her from behind sending them skidding face first in the mud. Before he could get a good grip on her, she twisted and turned trying to escape. With her mouth gagged, she couldn't bite. Both hands were still tied tight together, but she flailed her arms like a club knocking him in the side of the head.

The point of a rifle in her face followed by the heavily accented word, “Halt,” caused her to capitulate. The mud-covered man on top of her jumped to his feet. For several long seconds, she lay still, catching her breath and assessing her surroundings. Rain pelted her face washing away some of the mud. It stung her eyes, but she hesitated to wipe them with her dirty, bound hands.

They wanted something from her or else she'd already be dead. Allie swiped the gun barrel out of her face as she sat upright. Covered in thick mud, she struggled without help to her feet. She maintained as much grace and dignity that a one shoed, soaking wet, mud-covered woman could muster, and stared the wielder of the gun in the eye.

His silence and steady stare provoked her anger. She was in no mood for any further games. Cold, tired, and hungry, and though she hated to admit it, fear made her insides quiver. Not relinquishing his stare, now that the canvas bag was no longer tied around her, she managed to wiggle her fingers under the gag and together with the push of her tongue removed it from her mouth. She caught enough rain to coat her tongue and wet her mouth. Slowly enunciating each word she demanded. “What… do… you… want… with… me?"

"Nothing."

She spun to see a man in the open doorway of a building. At roughly five feet, he stood several inches shorter than she. The light positioned behind him gave his lean frame an eerily dark appearance and hid his features from view. Obviously, he was the one in control. Clipped commands in what she suspected as Korean and the men scurried to please. The man with the gun lowered the barrel, produced a knife, and removed the bindings from her wrists. Men on each side of her nudged her toward the door, though she hesitated to move. She simply stared at the shadowed, short man. He sidestepped, keeping his back against the door, and waved a hand inward toward the warm, inviting glow of the room.

"For now you shall be treated as my guest."

A solid push from behind and she was forced to close the gap between them. As she stepped into the doorway, he leaned close. His voice turned sinister as he warned, “Try to escape again and the punishment will be unpleasant."