Chapter 1
Canada–US Border
“Liz, put that bloody map away and help me read the signs!”
Liz pouted in the front seat, but she obliged her husband. She could tell Paul was stressed; he was always stressed.
The roads here didn’t help, either. She couldn’t make sense of where they were, even though everything was in English. They’d taken a wrong turn somewhere south of Abercorn, which itself was somewhere south of somewhere else, and neither of them knew where they were now.
The kids both needed to pee, but the last building of any sort they’d seen was a half-hour ago, and it looked like nothing more than a worn-down barn, empty and devoid of all life.
“Please,” Liz said, “let’s just pull over and wait for another car.”
She knew her husband was doing his best. It was hard enough driving on the right side of the road on the left side of a vehicle, but her cellular service had dropped hours ago, their phone batteries were on their last legs, and they’d somehow found the last stretch of uncivilized country in North America.
“I want to go home,” their daughter said, complaining for the twentieth time since they’d left civilization.
“I know, Brooksie. But we need to get back to the hotel, so we can get to our flight tomorrow. Then we’ll be home, okay?”
“Yeah,” her eight-year-old son said. “After a thousand-hour flight over an ocean.”
“Peter,” her husband snapped, a bit of his Liverpool slant returning to his voice. “Stop with it. You’re scaring her.”
Their daughter, two years younger than Peter, had a slight phobia of flying, only exacerbated by the fact that a London to Montreal flight was mostly over water.
“Ma, we’ve been driving for hours. Does Daddy know where we are?”
“No,” Paul said tersely. “I do not.”
“It’s okay,” Liz said, putting on her sweetest comforting voice. “We’re always close to somewhere.”
“Yeah, the middle of nowhere.”
“Pete!”
The road turned, then doubled back on itself. Liz checked her phone’s signal once again and decided against bringing up the fact that they hadn’t rented the GPS unit with their vehicle when the cashier had asked.
The Canadian night was brutally dark, the road diminishing to nothing but a one-lane stretch with no streetlights or lit signs to help them along.
They drove along for another few minutes, then Liz pointed. “There!”
The reflection came off another vehicle’s headlights, then the windshield. Then… the lights on top of the vehicle.
“It’s a police car,” Liz said. “Thank God.”
Her husband pulled the rental over to the right side of the road, just past the police squad car. As they passed it, Liz saw the silhouette of a man stepping out.
“He’s coming out; he’ll be able to help us,” she said.
They waited for a minute while the officer slowly ambled up to the side of the car. Her husband’s window was down already, the cool fall air quickly dropping the temperature inside.
The officer walked up to the window, his tall frame blocking out the view Liz had of the opposite side of the road.
“Evening, sir. Ma’am.”
Paul’s hands were gripping the wheel, about shoulder-width apart. He responded to the officer—something muttered that Liz couldn’t hear.
“License and registration?”
Her husband frowned, then looked over at Liz. She fumbled through the glove compartment, coming up with the receipt from the rental desk. Paul had his license out when she handed it over to him.
He gave the items to the officer and leaned his head out the window a bit. “We, uh, just need some help finding our way. Took a wrong turn somewhere, I guess.”
Liz couldn’t see the officer’s face, but there was no immediate response. He flipped through the items, then leaned down and looked into the rear window.
Brooks and Pete were silent.
“Where are you staying?” the man asked.
Her husband answered. “Sutton. Small bed and breakfast there.”
“You get off the highway?”
Her husband answered quickly. “No, no I don’t think we—”
Liz placed her hand on his arm. “We might have. The road narrowed, remember? We tried to get back to something recognizable.”
“Right, right,” her husband said. “We might have, uh, gotten off the highway.”
Liz leaned over. “Can you tell us where we are?”
“Sure, ma’am. You’re just outside Richford, Vermont.”
“Vermont?”
“Yes, ma’am. Please wait here,” the officer said.
Without waiting for a response, he strolled back to his own vehicle. He entered the car, turned it on, then pulled up next to theirs.
Liz saw the man leaning over in his seat to talk to them. “Follow me,” he said.
Liz met her husband’s eyes. “Honey,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“What do we do?”
“He told us to follow him. So we follow him.”
Chapter 2
Richford, Vermont
The town of Richford, Vermont, proudly displayed a sign boasting of a population of just over 2,000 people. New England-style houses lined the streets, the lots small and well-kept. But as idyllic as Liz imagined it would have looked in the daytime, it had a dreary, tired cast over it at night.
They crossed a large, green bridge, barely illuminated by a pair of small ground lights. A courthouse, no larger than the houses that led up to it, stood recessed on a city block, and a single-garage fire station stood on the corner just over the bridge.
“Where is he taking us?” Brooks asked.
“I don’t know, sweetie,” Liz said. “He’s probably just taking us to his station, where they can help us find our way back over the border.”
“We crossed the border?” Pete asked in hushed tones. “We’re in America?”
“I guess,” Paul said. “I didn’t see a border patrol, or a customs station. Did you?”
Liz shook her head.
This trip was quickly becoming a nightmare. They had landed in Montreal a week ago, planning to see some of the land north of the United States. Liz’s parents had raved about Montreal for years, and they had finally scraped together enough money to take a family trip. Convincing Paul to take the time off without worrying about missing an important meeting or coming across as lazy to his coworkers had been a struggle though.
Liz knew that it was less about his work ethic and more about his ability to worry: the man she’d been married to for sixteen years was able to worry about anything. Even now, she saw his whitened knuckles gripping the steering wheel as he drove the rental car through the streets.
“It’s going to be okay,” she said, keeping her voice low.
“You don’t know that.” His voice snapped, still quiet, but she could sense his anxiety growing.
She reached over and placed her arm on his shoulder.
The police station was on the opposite side of the street, a block farther down the road from the fire station; they followed the police officer into the parking lot of this tiny one-story building. Liz had seen no one since they entered Richford; it was like a ghost town. A few cars were parked alongside rusting meters on the street, old snow piled and dried out on their hoods and roofs.
The station had a single light on inside, but she couldn’t see through the window as it was caked with dirty snow and fog.
Paul pulled the car into a spot next to the police cruiser and Liz immediately opened her door. She shuffled back to the rear seats to check on the children.
“Ma’am,” the officer said, standing behind her. “Please come inside with me. We have coffee.”
She turned and eyed the officer as Brooks unbuckled her seatbelt and began to exit the rental car. Pete, on the other side, was already out and bounding toward the ice-covered walkway.
“And, uh… tea.” He offered a slight smile.
Liz forced a smile in return, then followed her daughter toward the front door of the station.
Chapter 3
Hudson, Massachusetts
Jacob Parker hunched his tall, athletic body over the wheel of his Toyota Corolla, wishing he were a bit shorter so he could more easily appreciate the scenery. Instead, he was forced to focus on the road ahead, looking for nothing and everything at the same time. This place brought that desire out of him; he couldn’t help it. He loved that the land here stretched as far as his eye could see, though his eye could see only from the windshield of his car to just past the first house on his left. The dense and unending Northeastern forest was the cause of that.
In his mind, Massachusetts had three distinct zones, each offering a unique geography: Boston, not-Boston, and the Berkshires. He was driving through the section of the state he called “not-Boston,” which was, true to its name, not Boston. But when explaining his location to an outsider, this area was just as easily described as “near Boston.”
The winding roads in this zone connected nation-old trade routes between farms that existed today only on paper. The houses were sturdy, well-constructed, and while they had the façade of an existence harkening back to Revolutionary times, they were modern, most built or rebuilt within the last fifty years.
The trees that framed the road weren’t planted, they were grown; most were older than the houses they surrounded. The forest in this zone—the “not-Boston” zone—stretched completely through the middle portion of the state, thick and majestic, making it difficult to pinpoint where exactly he currently was.
But Jake wasn’t confused about his location. The destination was on his right, and he pulled off the road, immediately buffeted by the emotions that struck every time he visited this place, yet silently choosing a reaction that was more suited to his newfound love of Stoicism.
Today is going to be a good day.
It was still early, by most citizens’ count, but Jake was an early riser and by 8 a.m. most mornings he was finishing his second—and last—cup of coffee for the day. His destination today—the Walden Pond State Reservation—had just opened, and he saw the docent walking the path to the visitor’s center as he parked.
The reservation was nothing but a handful of scattered buildings, one of which was a visitor’s center and museum, and another the reconstructed cabin of Henry David Thoreau, a man who would have been decidedly unenthused about a state government claiming control over a pond and natural area.
Jake sighed and reached to the passenger seat for his shoulder bag, slung it over his head, then exited the vehicle. Today is going to be a good day.
“Here early?” the docent asked.
Jake smiled, a characteristic half-grin that tucked out from the corner of his mouth, a way of smiling without having to truly feel it. “Same time as always, Kurt. Maybe you’re a few minutes late.”
Kurt threw his head back and laughed, a hearty roar that would have felt out of place even in a noisy bar. “Well, we’ll get you set up. Same as always?”
“Same as always,” Jake nodded. He followed the docent into the visitor’s center to pay for his parking—$8 for residents—and turned to leave just as two more cars entered the lot.
One had non-Massachusetts plates, but both vehicles were full of children and teenagers and ragged-looking parents, one even wearing a fanny pack.
Tourists.
They were here early, and they would no doubt be heading to Thoreau’s reconstructed cabin for some sightseeing. There was no need to rush; Jake was heading to a different spot.
He walked across the road and onto the trail that would lead to his destination, a spot on the trail called Thoreau’s Path, and a stone commemoration with words written by Henry David Thoreau himself: Down the road on the right hand, on Brister’s Hill, lived Brister Freeman… there where grow still the apple trees Brister planted and tended.
Brister Freeman, a black man who had earned his freedom during the Revolutionary War, had purchased an acre of land, built his home, and raised a family with his wife. The land had been taken from him by the town’s local government, but he had refused to leave, working out his days as a day laborer.
This was the place where Jake would spend the mornings when he needed to find a sense of solitude. The memory of a man so devoutly committed to his goal of living a free life, pushing against the force of society, gave him a sense of hope. It was this place where he had first read Walden, and it was in this spot where he felt closest to himself, able to be truly free once again.
The phone in his pocket rang, disturbing the sanctity of Jake’s solitude.
He pressed the side button on the phone, declining the call, then took in a deep breath. He held it, reciting his mantra silently. Today is going to be a good day.
He let out the breath and sat down on the dirt next to the stone marker. He wanted to just sit and think, to be alone for a while, but there was an elderly couple holding hands, walking by in front of him. In the distance, he could hear the train rolling along, and farther back the sounds of the highway, the incessant droning of faraway grinding and roaring as the commuters made their way to work.
This was as alone as he would get.
It didn’t matter. In the three years he’d been coming here, looking for something Thoreau and Brister and countless others had been looking for before him, he’d found nothing and had only ever left with more to search for.
He nodded once at the elderly couple, then pulled out his phone. He opened the calendar app, checking the schedule for the day. As usual, it was empty. He’d made a grocery run earlier that week, and that would last him at least another. His car’s tank was filled, and it too would last another week—he had nowhere else to be, nowhere to go. Nowhere he wanted to go, and yet he felt trapped.
His one-bedroom apartment, nothing but a converted set of rooms that had been built above a bar and tavern in downtown Hudson, was devoid of all life forms when he wasn’t in it, and it was devoid of many things that would imply life when he was. He had always meant to decorate, but after selling everything in his previous home in the downsizing, he’d never gotten around to it. No television, no couch in the living room, no pictures on the walls. He had a single plate and a single set of silverware. He owned a laptop, which was usually with him in his shoulder bag, and an e-reader, so there was no need for books or entertainment devices in the home, either. His gun, a SIG Sauer, he kept in the shoulder bag in a holster.
Most of his cooking was done on a single cast-iron skillet he’d inherited from his grandfather, and he drank water out of the single glass he owned. When he drank beer, it was downstairs in the tavern, where the owner would often spot him a freebie for being such a good tenant, and Jake would reciprocate by helping him close down the bar on some weekend nights, emptying the trash bins and taking out the recycling.
Locals that frequented the bar often gave him a hard time for his car, but his response was always the same. “Corollas run forever.” He usually didn’t add the fact that he’d personally rebuilt just about the entire engine—replacing worn and broken components with brand-new versions as needed, keeping it tuned-up and well-oiled, and treating the old car like an old friend: giving it attention, love, and respect.
Jake looked up at the trees once again. He understood the draw to live here, to eke out an existence on nothing but hands and knees and lots of hard work, not having to answer to anyone and not needing anything but more work. He wished it were still possible to chase a life like that.
But he knew the truth of it; he understood really that what he wanted was a way to go back, to change things. To make certain things right that were now wrong, to bring back things that were now gone. He liked the idea of the life this place hinted at, but he wanted the truth of the life he’d had before.
Before he’d had to start coming here.
Before he’d had to change everything.
Before he’d had to give it all up.
Jake flicked through a few more apps on his phone, finally landing back on the calendar app. There was a single event that had appeared, uncompleted, notifying him at the top of the screen.
He knew what it said; he’d read it before. It was a recurring task, one that popped up on this day every year, one he’d put in almost ten years ago. He could delete it; it hadn’t been needed for the last three years after all, but it hadn’t ever occurred to him to do so.
Anniversary dinner with Mel.
He didn’t read it, but he flicked it away, knowing it would simply return a year from now.
Chapter 4
Washington, D.C.
“Mr. Briggs, you’re needed in the conference room.”
The woman had hardly slowed as she tossed the statement into Briggs’ office on her way past his door. He was already putting on his jacket and reaching for his briefcase, and he shook his head.
Things would have been way different if I’d stayed in, he told himself. No one would have called me “Mr.,” and no one would have rushed by me without even stopping.
He checked his watch—he wasn’t even late. The walk down the hall, into the elevator, and then out a floor down and into the conference room was going to take just over three minutes. That would put him at the head of the table, removing his jacket and placing it carefully over the back of his chair, exactly five minutes before the meeting began.
He rolled his eyes. All this for just a meeting.
After eleven years of service in the United States Navy and a relatively quick ascent through the ranks, Derek Briggs had opted for a change in scenery: he now worked exclusively on land. He missed the deployments, the times at sea and the war games, but during the mostly peaceful times he’d served, he had longed for something different.
That “something different” was where he found himself now, eighteen years later. Although, there were just as many—if not more—meetings here. Director of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Briggs had been handpicked to join the newly formed organization by his predecessor, another Navy man who had also risen quickly through the ranks. Briggs had been groomed for this role, and he was good at it.
But he still hated meetings.
The jacket, a dark-blue heavy denim thing his wife had purchased for him a few years ago, was typically too casual to wear around the office, but he was hoping to sneak out early after the roundtable this afternoon to hit a bucket of balls at the course near his home in Colonial Village. After that, a nice, quiet evening with his wife and a bottle of Merlot.
He reached the conference room on the sixth floor of the seven-story building exactly five minutes before the scheduled start of the meeting—exactly as he’d planned. The years of Navy service had drilled into him a strong sense for punctuality, a characteristic he took pride in.
He folded his jacket and laid it on the chair back, then began working his shirt cuffs up and over his forearms. Since he was first into the room, he went through his notes for the upcoming meeting. And since that took all of thirty seconds—he’d written these notes himself, and he had a near-eidetic memory—he used the remaining time to check his secure email account, the one that bypassed the ICE firewall.
He had time to send two responses and archive a few more as people arrived.
Once everyone had entered the room and taken their seats, he cleared his throat. “Well, we’re all here,” he said, smiling. “Shall we get this going?”
Nods came from the others seated around the room.
His assistant, the woman who had nearly jogged past his office five minutes earlier, sat to his immediate left, a legal pad and pen poised and ready. He liked her; she was old-school, taking notes by hand and then entering the minutes into Word at the end of the day.
The others, five in total, sat around the table, waiting for him to begin. Three were representatives of the two main branches he was in charge of—Homeland Security Investigations and Enforcement and Removal Operations. Two more were executive-level, one from Mission Support Services and another from IHS—Immigration Health Services. He had worked with these two for years, and they had a rapport. There was likely going to be no new information from them this meeting; it would just be business as usual. Anything noteworthy would have been emailed over to him during the month.
His deputy director, who would normally be seated in the chair to his right, was currently overseas, working with one of their attaché offices in Germany on an ongoing transnational investigation International Operations was leading. It was a useful role, but it was an important one to Briggs for another reason—the deputy director was the type of person who enjoyed snooping around other people’s work. Lately, Briggs himself had been the target of the deputy director’s scrutiny, so Briggs appreciated the opportunity to get some professional work time to himself, without needing to worry about where his coworker’s eyes were landing.
“HSI,” he began, looking at the woman near the opposite end of the table.
Her head shot up. “Uh, right. Oh. Diane Abernathy, sir.”
“Abernathy,” he repeated. “Hello—thanks for being with us. You’ll have to fill in the rest of your group on what we discuss.”
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