The First Hostage: A J. B. Collins Novel by Joel C. Rosenberg

immediately after the ceremony.”
    A wave of nausea hit me with the news of the secretary of state’s death. Though I’d never interviewed him or developed him as a source, I had met him twice   —once when he’d made a surprise visit to Baghdad to hold a press conference with a new Iraqi prime minister,and once with his lovely wife, Bernadette, and their three teenage girls at a Christmas party at the American embassy in Paris. I couldn’t imagine what this family was going through, and so many other families like theirs.
    There was no time to grieve, however. We headed down several flights of stairs, with soldiers flanking us both ahead and behind. I appreciated the colonel’s help. It occurred to me that beyond his name and rank, I really had no idea who he was. We’d had no time to get acquainted. What was his background? Where was he from? And why was he so trusted by the king? I was about to ask him to tell me a bit about himself, but he started talking first.
    “You know, your name isn’t the only one on the byline. There are three others.”
    “Really? Who?”
    “Conyers from the White House, Baker at State, and Neeling at the Pentagon.”
    “They’re all backups, second-stringers,” I said. “What about Fisher, Thompson, and O’Malley?”
    “Says here they were all at the summit,” Sharif said. “They all died in the attacks.”
    “What about Alex?” I asked, referring to Alex Brunnell, the Times ’ Jerusalem bureau chief.
    “I’m afraid he was killed too.”
    We were approaching the vault door into the bunker. But I had to stop. I needed a moment. There was too much happening, too much death. I was sure some kind of emotional circuit breakers were going to blow at any second, and I didn’t want to see the king until I had gathered myself together. I stood there, just outside the bunker, eyes closed, inhaling and exhaling very deliberately. Just breathe, I told myself. Just breathe, in and out, in and out, in and out.
    What made it all worse was my complete inability to do my job properly. With no phone, I had no way to check my messages, noway to respond to e-mails, no way to track information or stay in touch with my family or my team in the States. And now I had a huge story that would rock the world. The Chevy Suburban carrying the president had been found bullet-ridden and abandoned in a facility swarming with terrorists. The president’s entire Secret Service detail was dead or gravely wounded. The backseat of the Suburban was covered with blood. There was a trail of blood leading to a side door. But the president was nowhere to be found. The Jordanians didn’t know where he was. Neither did the entirety of the American government.
    The door of the bunker opened. Sharif told me it was time to go see the king. I braced myself for the fight that was coming. I understood full well that there were national security implications here. But the American people needed to know. The world needed to know. These were no longer rumors. The president was gone, and the only logical conclusion that could be drawn from the facts at hand was that he was now in the custody of the Islamic State.

13

    “You’re right,” said the king.
    “I beg your pardon?” I said, unprepared for his response. I’d just completed an extended and somewhat-heated treatise on the importance of being able to write and transmit back to the States a detailed article on the missing president and the failed rescue attempt, but apparently for no reason.
    “Why do you think I sent you out there, Collins?” the monarch asked. “Why do you think Colonel Sharif pulled you into the middle of the action rather than staying up in the helicopter? Write the story quickly. As soon as the colonel clears it, you can e-mail it to your editors. I just have two requirements.”
    “Requirements?” I asked, bracing myself.
    “Yes.”
    “And they are?”
    “First, I’m asking you not to speculate,” he said.
    “Meaning