Tom Isbell - The Capture

Harper Voyager

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Harper Voyager 2016

Copyright © Tom Isbell 2016

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2016

Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com

Tom Isbell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007528226

Ebook Edition © January 2016 ISBN: 9780007528219

Version: 2015-12-18

To Joy, Sue, Jim~

Family

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Part One: The Road Back

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15 Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Part Two: Capture

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Part Three: Return

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also By Tom Isbell

About the Publisher

When men take up arms to set other men free, there is something sacred and holy in the warfare.

—PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON

HE WALKS THROUGH THE valley of shadows, surviving fire and flood, flames and torrents. Marching across the barren wilderness, he carries in his heart the faint memory of those who went before him. In his veins runs the blood of warriors, the pulse of poets.

Pursuing him are those who will not rest. Like lions, they track him, chasing him across the smoke-filled prairies, the desolate hills, the sun-stroked plains. The rivers shall turn against him, as shall the fields and forests.

Though he gathers friends, there are those who will betray him. Friend will become foe and foe become friend.

But my beloved fears not. He shall mount up with wings like the birds of the air, shall burrow beneath the earth like creatures of the dark, shall carry great loads like beasts of prey, shall run and not grow weary.

My beloved, in whom I am well pleased.

THEY LOOKED AT ME with hollow, vacant stares—their sunken cheeks more like ghosts’ than human beings’. Festering sores tattooed their bodies, and their pleading eyes cut circles in the black.

Please, their expressions said, as they strained against the chains that pinned them to the bunker walls. Get us out of here.

There were a dozen of them, boys my age, and the more I took in their emaciated bodies—the bones pushing against skin, the bloodshot eyes and skull-like faces—the more I realized I didn’t know how to help them. I had no idea, no solution for unlocking their shackles and setting them free.

You must, one of them said, as if I’d voiced my thoughts aloud, and soon all of them were saying it— You must, you must —their voices growing louder and more insistent until it was a kind of song, a raspy chant from begging faces.

You must. Help us.

“But I can’t. I don’t know how …”

You must help us.

“I don’t know how!”

YOU MUST HELP US!

I woke with a start, my T-shirt damp with sweat. With trembling hands I tried to rub the sleep from my eyes … and the image from my mind.