James Rollins - Bloodline

“Very good.” Gant pushed out of his seat. Ever the Southern gentleman. “Let me walk you out.”

The pair left the president’s personal briefing room, pausing only long enough for Painter to retrieve his BlackBerry from a lead-lined box outside the Situation Room. As he straightened and pocketed his phone, a familiar figure appeared at the end of the hall, flanked by Secret Service.

She was dressed in a sapphire-blue twill dress, over which she tied a lace cardigan tightly around her belly. Painter noted her balled fists, the scared cast to her eyes as she found her husband.

The First Lady, Teresa Gant, hurried toward him, balanced between attempting to maintain a professional decorum and raw panic. “Jimmy… I heard from your secretary that the meeting was over. I waited for as long as I-”

“Terry, I’m sorry.” The president caught his wife, hugged her, and brushed a few loose blond hairs from her cheek. “I had a few more details to attend to. I was going to you next.”

She stared up at his face, searching for any news there, plainly afraid to question him in front of her bodyguards. No one could know about Amanda’s plight.

“Come, let’s return to the residence.” The president looked ready to scoop her into his arms and carry her to safety. “I’ll tell you everything there.”

Gant glanced at Painter.

He understood. Teresa needed her husband. At this moment, they were not the First Lady and the president. They were simply two parents terrified for their child, seeking comfort in each other’s arms.

Painter left them to their grief, more determined than ever to find their daughter. But as he headed down the hall, he could not escape the feeling that the events in the Horn of Africa were masking something far greater-and far more dangerous.

He checked his watch. Gray and his team would be landing in Somalia in the next hour. If anyone could ferret out the true intent behind the kidnapping of the young woman, it was Commander Pierce. Still, Painter felt a stab of misgiving for having sent Gray in blind, for failing to mention his suspicions about the president’s family.

He prayed that silence didn’t cost lives.

Especially the president’s daughter and her unborn child.

July 1, 8:02 P.M . East Africa Time

Cal Madow Mountains, Somalia

The truck continued its slow crawl through the mist-shrouded forest.

Amanda Gant-Bennett rode in the back of the older-model Land Rover. Modified with an open top, it must have once served as a safari-touring vehicle. A massive grille protected the front end, and four large driving lights were mounted on the roof rack. She’d also noted the two winches-front and back-along with a shovel and ax secured to the fender, ready to help free the vehicle if it became bogged down or stuck.

From the terrain they traveled, she understood the necessity for such modifications. The road was little more than a muddy track through the dark jungle. Somalia suffered from an arid climate, but the rainy season-called gu , she’d overheard-had just ended. These highlands, bordering the Gulf of Aden, received most of that rain. And what didn’t fall here as precipitation remained as thick fog.

A jarring bump threw her high. Only her seat belt kept her from flying out of the truck. She had initially thought of doing just that, of leaping free and taking her chances out in the dark jungle. But seated beside her was a heavyset guard, armed and sweating, chewing khat , a local stimulant used by nearly everyone. A second, larger truck followed at their heels, making any chance of escape impossible.

And she ultimately knew that any attempt would put more than her own life at risk.

She pushed the lap strap of the seat belt lower, below the bulge of her belly and above her hip bones. She had to protect her child. The baby boy growing in her womb was more important than her own well-being. He was the reason she and her husband had risked this flight halfway around the world.

To keep you safe…

And now her baby had fallen into another set of hands, becoming a tool to generate a larger ransom by the pirates. She remembered the Brit’s hungry eyes on her belly as she was taken off the yacht. Here, life was a commodity to buy and sell, even the new life growing in her belly.

Oh, Mack, I need you .

She closed her eyes, her heart constricting with the last memory of her husband, the fear and love shining in Mack’s eyes. She shied away from the horror that followed, his severed head tossed upon the bed where they’d made such careful love only hours earlier. But she had no time to grieve for her husband.

She drew a long, steadying breath, taking in the damp and redolent smell of junipers and wild lavender of the dense forest. Though numb with grief and terror, she had to stay strong. In the South, it was unseemly to be caught sweating in public. On the campaign trail with her father, she had learned to maintain a placid and friendly exterior-even when screaming on the inside. Instead, it was all smiles, handshakes, and warm pats on the back. Even with your enemies… especially with your enemies.

So, she continued to cooperate with her captors. Jumping when they said jump, remaining always pliant and obedient. Still, all the while she watched. It was another lesson from her father, his words echoing in her head, explaining the best way to gain the upper hand.

Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut .

And that’s what she intended to do. So far, the pirates gave no indication they knew she was the president’s daughter. They’d not even questioned her yet. In fact, they’d barely said a word. A grunt here or there, a pantomimed instruction, a few terse orders. Mostly about drinking water.

We don’t want anything to happen to your baby .

The warning had come from the man seated in the passenger seat up front, the Brit with his thin mustache and impeccable attire. He remained the only consistent presence around her-though he’d ignored her most of the day, bent over a laptop computer attached to a satellite phone and GPS navigation unit.

She studied the back of his head, trying to figure him out, searching for a weakness. He tapped at his laptop and the screen changed to a topographic map. She feigned a kink in her back to stretch forward, trying to peek at the screen, to discern some idea of where she was and where they were going. But her guard yanked her back, his hand lingering over her left breast, which was tender and swollen. She slapped his fingers away, which only earned her a lascivious leer.

Defeated, she stared sullenly out at the misty forest.

Exhaustion and fear had stretched the day’s journey into a blur. At dawn, they’d made landfall at a small coastal town, a booming shantytown of bars, hotels, restaurants, and whorehouses, all serving the pirate trade. And from the number of expensive cars lining newly paved streets and half-constructed villas along the coast, it was plainly a lucrative and thriving business. To protect that industry, militiamen swerved through the streets in Mercedes SUVs, weapons bristling from rolled-down windows, making sure no one attempted to rescue any of their hostages.

And there must have been others like her.

As their boat had entered into port, she’d spotted numerous captured vessels: fishing trawlers, sailboats, a sleek yacht, and, anchored out in the deeper waters, an oil tanker. They’d only remained in town for less than an hour. There, she was handed over to another pirate gang and put on a hot, poorly ventilated Volkswagen bus out of town.

They drove half a day through lands hammered dry and flat by the merciless sun, the featureless landscape only broken by the occasional village of dry huts. They’d stopped only long enough for her to urinate, which was often, and humiliating each time. In the distance, mountains had loomed, seeming to grow higher with each passing mile.