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State Department is keeping the FBI out.
    I assure you, we're not.
    If the State Department hadn't insisted on strict compliance with an outdated policy, the FBI would have accepted your invitation to work on the case.
    That may well be the explanation given to you by a particular FBI agent, but the bureau is fully aware of the U. S. policy against concessions to terrorists. If they're declining to get involved in the case, it's for their own reasons.
    Such as?
    Reasons other than a disagreement over policy.
    What possible justification could the FBI have for ducking a case involving a kidnapped American citizen?
    We can't force the FBI to get involved. We can only invite them. Theoretically, any number of things could lessen the bureau's interest in a case abroad. Conflicts with local law enforcement. Special dangers to FBI personnel. The identity of the victim.
    It was subtle, but he seemed to place emphasis on the last point.
    Are you suggesting that the FBI's declination has something to do with my father?
    He hesitated, as if he'd said too much. I was simply talking in hypotheticals.
    Is there something I should know?
    Perhaps you should ask the FBI.
    Perhaps. But why do I have the sense that you know something you're not telling me?
    Again he paused. Like I said, ask the FBI.
    Pressing for more would only have antagonized him. Thank you, I said. I definitely will ask them.
    As we hung up, I finally noticed the streams of cars speeding past me on the interstate. I'd been driving like my grandmother, not sure what to make of things. Mom and I had taken a liking to Agent Nettles at our initial meeting, but it seemed impossible to reconcile the excuse he'd given me last night with the explanation offered by the consular agent this morning. The FBI was not taking the case, but why?
    One way or the other, my own government was lying to me. It was only a matter of which agency.
    My head was pounding as I cut across the expressway and took the fast lane back to Miami.

    Chapter 6
    Mom and I cooked dinner ourselves, even though her friends had brought over enough casseroles and covered dishes for her to kiss the Cuisinart good-bye forever. Those closest to our family felt as compelled as we did to do something, even if it was as simple as keeping our cupboard stocked. For Mom and me, cooking was something to do besides worry, a way to pretend that we could weather the crisis together and maintain a semblance of normalcy.
    Dinner was a delicious shrimp creole made with - you guessed it - shrimp from Rey's Seafood Company. They weren't the gigantic ones from deep, cold waters off Venezuela that made such beautiful shrimp cocktails, but they were of good size for the Mosquito Coast. They tasted so fresh, and as the son of a fisherman I knew why. They were fresh-frozen, which sounds like an oxymoron, but Americans eat far more fresh-frozen seafood than they realize. Restaurant patrons in New York, Chicago, or Boston would never guess that when their snooty waiter assures them that today's snapper is fresh, he really means fresh-frozen - as in fresh when it was caught, frozen in the boat on its way to the dock, thawed for processing at the plant, refrozen for shipment, thawed again when it was sold, and therefore fresh when it finally lands on a dinner plate. Unappetizing as all that sounds, if it weren't frozen at various stages of the long journey from Nicaragua to your plate, that delicious grilled whitefish drizzled with mango butter would taste like whale dung and smell even worse.
    Of course, Mom just picked at her dinner, wondering if Dad had anything to eat. Honestly, I hadn't seen her sit down and eat a real meal in almost a day and a half.
    Any leads on Lindsey? she asked.
    My sister was still missing, which by itself wasn't alarming. She traveled with no itinerary in pursuit of her journalistic pipe dream. With one member of the family kidnapped, however, it would have been nice to be able to account for her.
    This