CHAPTER 59

EVEN THOUGH SAMPSON FELT drowsy from the food and wine, he forced himself to assess his situation.

He started with the assumption that he was being monitored and decided he did not care if they watched him probe the room for weaknesses. Although it was clean and reasonably well appointed, it was a cell, plain and simple. There was no secret toggle or pressure plate he could find to open the door from the inside. The steel sink’s faucet knobs were welded on. The toilet top was bolted down. He could not get at any of the moving parts. There was no mirror.

The bunk below the mattress was one piece and made of a dense fiberglass material, the edges rounded like a surfboard’s. The hardware that held it to the wall was seamless, with recessed screws and permanent hinges.

The wine had come in a flimsy plastic cup. He’d been given plastic cutlery along with a paper plate. The knife broke when he was halfway through his steak—which, although he hated to admit it, was excellent. By the time he was finished with the meal, the fork’s tines were all broken. He knew prison inmates made shanks out of small pieces of plastic, but he saw no way to craft a knife.

There was the issue of the biometric controls on everything. And even if he could somehow circumvent the retinal scanners, get out of his cell, get the elevator working, and make it outside, they’d taken his parka, boots, hat, and gloves. In the slippers, at night, he’d probably freeze to death in the sixty-below windchill before he even figured out where he was.

A hollow feeling started to build in his gut. His breath came quicker, and he realized his muscles were tense.

John knew what was happening. He felt trapped, cornered. The most primitive parts of his brain were activating, pushing him toward a fight-or-flight response.

Can’t let that happen. You’re going to make bad decisions. Got to get control if you want to survive.

Sampson’s SERE training instructors had consistently stressed that the most important weapon he had in captivity was his mind. If he could not control his thoughts, his emotions, keep them from dragging his brain into its most primitive state, he would spiral down, make impulsive decisions, and be doomed.

He remembered one of those instructors, a tough master sergeant named Frank Eagleton, telling him that to avoid despair when being held, to stay active and alert, you had to focus on the moment at hand rather than on the unknowable future or the unchangeable past.

But try as he might, he could not stop his thoughts from straying to his past with Willow and his future with his daughter and Rebecca Cantrell.

Up bubbled a rush of regret, guilt, and sorrow. He’d willingly come along on this trip with Bree. He’d put himself in harm’s way as much as she had. And why hadn’t he sent the love letter?

And now here he was, a prisoner of his decisions.

Willow had had no say in the matter. Neither had Rebecca. And they were the ones most likely to suffer the long-term consequences.

Sampson shut off the light, climbed into his bunk, and wallowed in his predicament, feeling weaker and less sure of himself and his chances for survival.

But then he saw Sergeant Eagleton clearly in his mind—that big jaw his survival instructor had had, the way it jutted out when he spoke.

The enemy is everyone and everything that might prevent you from coming home alive and with dignity, Eagleton said. He tapped his temple. I say again: Your number one weapon against any enemy is your mind. The question is, are you going to let your mind use you or are you going to use your mind in a way that allows you to resist and fight back?

Again, Sampson thought of Willow, how she danced her way to him when he picked her up at school, and of Rebecca, how she made him smile every time she walked into a room.

I’m going to use my mind, he told himself over and over again. He closed his eyes and began to drift toward darkness and dreams. I am going to resist and fight back.