Prologue

"I DON'T WANT TO DIE!"

"Shut up, Chuck. We're not going to die."

If he doesn't quit his whining, I'll kill him myself, Melanie thought as she ran her fingers along the concrete blocks feeling for an opening. "Katie, can you find any cracks on your side of the room?"

"No, Mel. However Wyatt built this place, he made sure whoever or whatever he put in here wouldn't be able to get out."

Katie tried to clear the dust away from an area on the floor next to Eric and Chuck, who had already resigned to their fate several minutes earlier. "I give up," he sighed, slumping down onto the dirty concrete.

"Melanie, you should listen to Katie and take a break," Chuck groaned. "I'm sure Wyatt will be back soon to let us out. He wouldn't seriously leave us in here to suffocate to death."

"I don't know, Chuck," Eric continued to run his fingers over the concrete wall. "That warning shot he fired at the ceiling looked pretty threatening to me. Then he forced us into this windowless room with apparently no means of opening the door from this side."

"If we could even find the door," Katie said.

"Eric, you're overreacting as usual. When that bullet flew over your head, your freckles nearly jumped from your skin," Chuck teased. "Look, I know we've both been part of Wyatt's shady dealings, but I don't think he's capable of cold-blooded murder. I know he bragged about how he tricked us into helping him execute his master plan and that he didn't want to leave any witnesses, blah, blah, blah. He sounded more like an actor reciting lines from a very bad horror movie than making an actual threat. You know how Wyatt liked to play practical jokes in high school. I just can't imagine he'd really want us all dead."

Chuck didn't feel as confident as he hoped he sounded.

"Yeah, well when Wyatt pulled that trigger it sure as hell didn't appear that he was joking. He scared the shit out of me," Eric argued. "I'm beginning to think Wyatt is capable of anything. If Katie's hair wasn't white already, I'm sure it would have turned as soon as she heard that thing go off."

Ignoring Eric's insult, Katie tried to reassure the others. "Look, guys. Wyatt may be a lot of things..."

"Like a liar and a blackmailer..." Eric cursed.

"And a manipulative prick..." Chuck added.

"With an ego the size of Montana..." Melanie tried to lighten the mood.

"...and a few small countries," Katie added with a laugh. "But one thing I know for certain is that Wyatt Gaynes is not a murderer."

"I'm not so certain, Katie. He's isn't the same hot jock high school football star wannabe who dated a different cheerleader every month," Eric began.

"Two or three at the same time as I recall," Chuck added through clenched teeth. "And he always managed to get away with it with that fake boyish charm."

"Still jealous, Chuck?" Melanie said, grinning slightly. "While that might have been true once, thirty years can change a man, and not always for the better. One thing I do know about Wyatt, is that every plan he concocted always contained one major flaw, and that includes the construction of this room. All we have to do is find it. Get your lazy ass off the floor and help us look!"

"We've been looking for more than three hours, Mel. I'm telling you, it's hopeless."

"Chuck, the only thing that's hopeless in this room is you. Now I know why your software company nearly went bankrupt. You have no backbone for a challenge."

Insulted for the last time, Chuck brought his paunch-bellied frame to full standing. The bald spot on his head brushed against the three dim light bulbs dangling from the concrete ceiling causing a spotlight to alternately shine on the desperate expressions of his three former classmates' faces.

"Dammit," Chuck cursed, "You sound as if this is all my fault. Eric and I were doing just fine before you girls showed up."

"You're right, Chuck," Eric immediately joined sides with the only other male in the room, "If you and Melanie hadn't interfered with our plans back in the computer room, we wouldn't all be locked in this damn dungeon, running out of air."

"We have plenty of hot air with the two of you blaming us for your predicament," Katie shot back. "At least we're trying to find a way out of here."

 "Girl," she said to her friend, "you look exhausted. Ignore these jerks and take a break."

"I think you're right, Katie. We need to conserve our energy. If you two useless men will just be quiet for a few minutes," Melanie gave Chuck and Eric a piercing stare, "I'm taking five."

Melanie leaned against the cold concrete and wiped the sweat from her forehead with her shirt sleeve. The dampness in the cramped space had turned her wavy auburn hair into a wild frizzy rat's nest. Every muscle in her almost fifty-year-old body was on fire from her thwarted attempts to break out of their prison.

Exhausted, she closed her eyes, took a few deep breaths and mentally began replaying the events of the past few days which had led her fellow incarcerates into the dark hole from which there seemed to be no escape.

Although their individual lives had taken them on very diverse paths, they all shared the unfortunate common denominators of possessing a diploma from Abbeyville High School and being caught in the insidious web of Wyatt Gaynes; a web whose epicenter began in the heartland of Minnesota and stretched throughout the European continent trapping everything in its path.

When the undercover agents first approached Melanie and Kathleen the night of their thirtieth reunion party, the women could never have imagined that the innocent spy game they had played against Eric and Chuck nearly four decades ago would become a real life confrontation with one of the most insidious criminal minds of their generation.