Six Seconds

“What?”

Jake drew back his fist and Maggie grabbed it.

“No, Jake! Stop it! We have to go home. Craig, I am so sorry.”

Jake stared at her, at Logan who’d watched it all, along with everybody else. Jake just walked off, drove away, and spent the night in his rig, parked in the driveway of their home, exiled from the people who loved him.

She and Logan endured the humiliation and, in the days that followed, Jake refused to speak of the incident. He went on several long-haul jobs while Maggie called anonymous crisis lines to find a way to fix their lives.

She did all that she could for her family.

Maggie opened her eyes.

There it is again.

The noise.

A bit louder this time.

She got out of bed to check.

She went into the hallway and looked around. Unease rippled through her as she headed for the living room and the study area. Nothing obvious. Yet something felt wrong. She went to the bathroom, checked behind the shower curtain.

Nothing.

She went to Logan’s room. Nothing. She went back to the living room and this time she went deeper into the study area where she kept her computer and her records on Jake and Logan.

The tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

Her papers had been shuffled, some had spilled onto the floor.

Had someone been in her home?

Maggie looked at the patio door just off the study at the back of the house. It was open by about four inches. She closed it. Locked it.

Did she leave it open?

She’d been careless before when she was lost in her thoughts.

If she did, it would explain her scattered file. It was breezy tonight.

What’s that?

A faint trace of something. A lingering scent she couldn’t identify.

Maybe it was nothing.

Was she so stressed her mind was playing tricks on her?

This is stupid. She couldn’t handle this right now.

No. It was strange, but she could feel a presence.

Maggie jumped as her phone rang.

Who’d be calling at this hour?

Hope fluttered in her stomach then fear clawed at her.

“Hello?”

Silence swallowed her answer. The incoming caller was BLOCKED, according to her caller ID.

“Hello? Who’s there?”

Nothing. No breathing. No background noise. Only silence.

“Who are you calling, please?”

Through the window Maggie saw a car whisk down the street with only its parking lights on.

What’s happening?

She hung up and thrust her face in her trembling hands.

Was she losing her mind?

8

Washington, D.C.

North of the White House, beyond the Capitol and the Washington Monument, Carol Mintz analyzed potential threats to the security of the United States.

The pope’s upcoming visit to the U.S. made her even more tense.

Watch for everything. Note anything, her supervisor had advised her.

Sure. No problem. That’s what we do here twenty-four-seven. It never stops.

Mintz’s keyboard clicked softly as she scrolled through the secret file from the U.S. Embassy in Libya.

A French intelligence source listening to Algerian insurgent operatives had intercepted radio traffic out of Tripoli. The chatter indicated a possible shipment of hostile cargo from Africa was nearing the U.S.

No other information was known.

Mintz, an intelligence specialist, checked her archives, confirming what she’d suspected. This one had first surfaced a few weeks ago with an unsubstantiated report of a freighter steaming from Morocco’s Port of Tangier, the cargo thought to be drugs from Ethiopia. According to the latest information, that ship had navigated the Suez, crossed the Indian Ocean and was now thought to be somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.

Still unsubstantiated.