"Boo, be brave. I'll find you. I'll come for you."

"Will you please kill this asshole?"

"I will."

"I'd really appreciate that."

Scott heard a man's laughter and then his voice.

"She is a real pistol, the redheaded one. Judge, do hurry and release the Imam. Before I send her pretty little red head back to you in a box."

In August 2014, ISIS beheaded American journalist James Foley and posted the video on the Internet. The executioner warned the president that more American blood would flow if the U.S. continued airstrikes against ISIS.

The U.S. did.

ISIS beheaded American journalist Steven Sotloff and British aid worker David Haines in September; British aid worker, Alan Henning, in October; American aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, in November; and two Japanese in February. They burned a Jordanian pilot alive because of King Abdullah's alliance with the U.S. Three ISIS jihadists (two of whom were British citizens) plotted to kill the Queen of England on VJ Day, but the Brits killed them with a drone strike before they could carry out their attack.

Now ISIS had abducted his daughters. It didn't seem possible. ISIS had been on the television, not in Dallas. Not in their lives. But now they were. Because of Omar al Mustafa.

Abdul jabbar sat before a computer screen in the law school library and typed a message.

We have his girls.

TWENTY.

Tuesday, 2 February 5 days before the Super Bowl Boo woke to odd sounds. Chanting. In the distance, but not outside. Maybe from a television in another room. She couldn't understand the words; they were in that same foreign language.

"Allahu Akbar ... Allahu Akbar ... Allahu Akbar ..."

The chanting made her feel cold. She said a silent prayer.

Please, A. Scott, come for us.

Scott opened his eyes to a new world. Life had changed. Irrevocably. Irreparably. His bedroom was not the same as the day before. Or the bathroom. Or the house. Everything was different. The girls were gone.

He was afraid for them-that the men would hurt them.

He was afraid for himself-that he would never see them again.

And he was mad. The shock had worn off and been replaced by anger: They took my girls! They came into my house and took my daughters!

His entire being burned with anger.

But he had to keep up appearances. He had to keep the girls' abduction secret-from the neighbors, the school, their friends, the FBI ... and from Cat. He had no choice. So he dressed for his run and walked down the hall, but he stopped at the girls' bedroom door. Their bed was empty.

Where did they sleep last night?

He entered their empty room and sat on their empty bed. He picked up a framed photo from the nightstand; it was of the girls, Shawanda, Louis, Bobby, Karen, and Scott on the courthouse steps after the verdict three and a half years before. Two months later, Shawanda was gone from his life. Now Pajamae and Boo were gone from his life. He had been wrong; there was still something fame could take from him. His daughters.

And take them it had.

He went out the back door and walked around front; he nodded at Agent Smith eating a breakfast taco and forced a smile in response to Cat's. She stepped to him as if to kiss him, but he couldn't kiss her. If he kissed her, if he touched her, if he embraced her, he would tell her. And his daughters would die.

So he ran. Normally, they got into a nice rhythm for the five miles. But not that day. That day Scott ran. The anger propelled him forward. He didn't talk. He didn't think. He ran. Hard. Violently. Angrily. The anger drove him.

"Are you mad at me?" Cat asked when they arrived back at the house.

"No."

"Why didn't you text me back last night? Or answer my phone calls?"

"I was ... occupied."

"With the girls?"

"Yes."

He wanted to tell her the truth, but instead he turned and went inside. Cat waited outside with Agent Smith. When Scott walked in the back door, he found Consuelo sitting in a chair and saying the rosary through silent tears; and he saw Boo's blood pressure cuff and stethoscope on the kitchen counter with her little notebook and pencil. He wrapped the cuff around his left arm then pumped it up. She had explained the process to him before; he recorded his blood pressure in the notebook for that date: 120/80.

"Aren't the girls going to school today?"

Scott had seemed distracted on their run that morning; he hadn't been his normal self. He had said nothing during the run. Cat had that kind of morning now and again, so she had left him to his thoughts. She just enjoyed the moment, running with a man she cared about.

A man she ... loved?

She had waited outside while he dressed for court; she didn't feel that having sex with him gave her carte blanche in his life. He had walked out of the house dressed for court but alone. He shook his head.

"They're still not feeling well."

He turned toward the Expedition in the driveway.

"Did you get them the flu shot?" Cat asked.

Scott wheeled on her. His face was suddenly stern. His voice more so.

"Of course, I got them the vaccine. Do you think I'm not a good father? That I don't take care of my girls? That I can't protect them? Is that what you think, Agent Pea?"

Cat almost dropped her coffee. Agent Pea?

"No ... no, that's not what I think. You're a great father, Scott. I'm sorry, I ... I didn't mean anything."

Scott's stern face slowly dissolved. He started to say something but abruptly turned and climbed into his Expedition. Cat realized she was trembling.

"Shit, he sure got up on the wrong side of the bed today," Ace said.

You only die once. Why not make it martyrdom?

The ISIS motto inspired Abdul jabbar. It was now his personal motto. His path in life. He was not the uneducated, unemployed, disaffected, alienated, angry Muslim male portrayed in the American media as the typical Islamic jihadist.

He was just angry.

He wanted revenge. When the Super Bowl had first been played in Cowboys Stadium in 2011, he had learned of the arches that supported the roof and the massive HDTV screen hanging from the roof. He began plotting his revenge. He decided on a fertilizer bomb like Oklahoma City, only bigger. Much bigger. Big enough to buckle one arch. Big enough to bring the stadium down. The plot was five years in the making. Not five months or five weeks or five days. But five years. Revenge will drive a man a long distance indeed.

"Five days, people," Beckeman said.

An hour later, Cat and Ace had deposited the judge at the courthouse and sat in the war room at FBI headquarters in Dallas. Agent Beckeman stood before the whiteboard. Cat still had not recovered from Scott's harsh words that morning. It was so unlike him. She had never met a more even-tempered, gentle man. Perhaps he was worried about his daughters. But still, the flu was not life threatening.

"Mustafa knows the men," Agent Stryker said. "A little enhanced interrogation and-"

"The director talked to the president again this morning," Beckeman said. "The answer is still no."

Scott's anger threatened to get the best of him. He had arrived at the courthouse and gone straight to the detention center.

"Where are they?"

The Imam looked up from the Koran. "I do not know."

"Help me!"

"I cannot."

"You release my daughters, or I swear to God you'll rot in that cell. You'll never see the light of day again. Or your children. You take my children from me, I'll take your children from you."

"I would really like to cut off their heads and send them to the president," Abdul jabbar said.

"Why? They're just kids."

"And the president kills kids in Pakistan and Iraq and Syria every day with drone missiles. Look."

Abdul pointed at the television. CNN reported another drone strike in the Middle East, this one in Syria. The missile supposedly killed an ISIS commander-and a dozen children. The missiles could not choose between the good and the bad, so often the good died with the bad and often instead of the bad. As their father had died.

"I really want to do that," Abdul said. "Behead someone. Feel what it is like to take a human life."

"You killed those two Mexicans."

"That is not the same as cutting through a person's flesh and veins and the blood spurting out. That is real killing. And one day, I will do that."

His little brother stared at him.

"Abdul, you scare me."

Louis stood in the courtroom next to the judge. He was like his father, the girls like his sisters. They were the only family he had ever had. Life without the girls, that wouldn't be a life. He fought back tears and tried to focus on the lawyers.

"Your Honor, the states do not have standing to contest the president's executive order."

Scott was going through the motions of life-dressing in a suit, driving to the courthouse, presiding in the courtroom over the second oral arguments in the immigration case ... but none of it seemed real. It was as if he were watching another person living his life.

"We have standing," the states' attorney said, "because A, we are the ones forced to pay for the president's executive order, and B, the principle of abdication gives us standing."

Scott's eyes were focused on the lawyer standing before him, but his mind was focused on his daughters: Were they hungry?

"Your Honor, we've addressed the cost issue extensively in the briefs. Would you like me to address the abdication issue?"

Had they slept last night?

"Uh, Your Honor?"

Were they being treated well?

He heard Karen's voice, but it seemed distant. "Please do, counsel."

"Yes, sir ... ma'am. The federal government has claimed-with the backing of the Supreme Court-sole authority over immigration and border security. That is, federal law preempts all state laws respecting immigration and border security. The states can take no action in that regard. But then the federal government refuses to act. We can't act, and they won't. But they force the states to pay for the consequences of their refusal. We have to pay the cost of their inaction."

"That's the law," another lawyer said.

"That's not fair."

"Cry me a river."