There is no feeling quite like total submersion--to have water all around you. You cannot see or hear, and all you feel is wet. Your nose is worthless to you in the absence of air to breathe, and even your taste buds tell you nothing useful--assuming the water in question is clean. Deprived of all senses, a person might think himself closer to God. What is baptism after all, but submersion--a disconnection of all senses but for the sense of faith?

Actually there is a kind of sound to be heard; sort of a steady hum. It might be the rush of blood through your veins, arteries, and capillaries, or--if you are submerged in a lake--the sound of a distant motor. But it is always there. For our purposes it can be considered silence.

Then you rise to the surface. Slowly at first but even buoyancy has inertia. The sounds of the real world start to creep in through the humming non-sound. They might be the sounds of children playing on a beach, of senior citizens playing shuffleboard on the deck of the Princess cruise ship "Pacific Princess". If you prefer Carnival Cruise, it might even be Kathie-Lee Gifford singing. The point is it's faint at first, and then it gets louder.

Eventually light comes and, as you finally reach the surface, you can taste and smell as you see fit. If someone throws something hard at you, it will probably feel more than wet, and you are finally back in the real world.

At no point thus far in his adventure had Zac been submerged in water, and he still wasn't. As soon as he came to he knew he was dry. Yet he had gone through the feeling of emergence. Sound came back - he even felt for a moment like he was floating upward, and this worried him.

Secret agents have to specialize, and Zac's specialties were computers and explosives. He knew first aid, but actual medicine was all Isaac. The few medical courses he had taken he'd practically slept through--pausing briefly to hack into the American Psychological Association's mainframe and classify "Backstreet Boys" as a neurosis.

Currently he was wishing he'd paid more attention. Specifically, he would like to know more about concussions and how to know if you had one. He knew that when you did have one, you weren't supposed to go to sleep. He did _not_ know if passing out was counted as "sleeping".

To be blunt his last bout of unconsciousness felt very "submerged" and "disconnected" to him. He felt very close to God.

And, considerations of faith aside, he didn't want to get any closer before the age of seventy-five or so.

* - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - *

There were secret service agents at the door.

Isaac sat in the HanCave's control room slightly baffled. He had seen secret service agents on the surveillance camera many times before, but why today? Surely they hadn't left anything behind at the white house, and once you were fired you were fired.

One of the agents looked vaguely familiar. It seemed to Isaac that his name was Gilbert or Gilmore or something to that effect. The other he didn't think he'd met. Not that he had ever been formally introduced to any of the Secret Service guys - they were all business.

Agent Gilmore leaned forward and pressed the buzzer again irritably. Isaac heard the G chord echo throughout the place, and the Hanson symbol in the wall lit up electric blue.

There wasn't a phone call Isaac hadn't made. His parents had been no help at all-if anything they'd slowed him down. The same was true of his friend Mitch from the Department of Justice. There was no reason someone at the DOJ _should_ have known anything, but he was out of options at the time. Mitch had wanted to talk about the super bowl. Ike pretended there was someone at the door, and hung up on him.

But now, of course, there was someone at the door.

Ah well, he was out of people to call anyway.

* - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - *

Taylor's BMW blew past a speed trap at the Virginia state-line. In order to save on expletives, it will be noted that inside the Virginia state police car in question, two officers were very startled, and some hot coffee was spilled.

"He must have been going a hundred!"

"A hundred? Try one-forty maybe. I don't even know how many doors that had..." Trooper Montat thought about this. "Probably it had two though, going that speed."

His partner pulled the cruiser out into the road and floored it. The silver BMW (and from this angle they saw it could be nothing but a BMW) was nearly out of sight on the well-lit freeway.

"This is 224 in pursuit of a silver BMW southbound on I-495. Subject is traveling at an extremely high rate of speed."

And then, it was out of sight.

"...We're going to continue our pursuit uh to..." he let up on the microphone button of the radio. "Do you reckon he'll exit up there?"

Montat shook his head dumbly. Clearly 140 had not been an accurate estimate as to the vehicles speed.

"...Be advised that this subject is...still basically southbound." The cruiser pulled off the road and sat idling.

"Jesse, we _could_ go after him," Montat suggested. He saw his partner nodding slowly, "But we probably wouldn't catch him." The nodding continued.

"Damn. How fast was he going anyway?" In unison they looked at the radar readout in the center of the dashboard.

"Well that figures," Montat sighed. "It's broken."

"This is a new car."

"Still..." the young trooper banged on the dashboard with his coffee cup. It had no effect.

"224 THIS IS DISPATCH WHAT IS YOUR STATUS?" the radio bleated.

"...Copy that dispatch...this is 224. I was, I mean we were mistaken. We're going to call it a night. Nothing to see out here." Jesse Albert glanced in the rear-view mirror and pulled the cruiser across the median in a lazy U-turn.

"I guess he could have had some kind of a jammer or something?"

"You ever see a jammer do that? Jamming's one thing but this is uh... another... thing." It was Trooper Albert's turn to punch at the dashboard now. Again, it refused to change.

They drove in silence back to the station, the bright-red " TH " glaring at them in digital insolence from the radar.

* - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - *

"Wow they didn't even chase you. I love this car..." Merchant sighed. "You did say I could have this car if you died?"

Taylor drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and changed lanes in anticipation of passing a car three quarters of a mile ahead of them.

"Huh? When did I say that?"

"When did you say what?"

"You can have this car if I die?"

"Well just now for a start. And I think I got it on record." Merchant pressed a button on his watch. A scratchy, digitized Taylor said, 'You can have this car if I die?' "I guess I should have had you phrase it as a statement. Let's try it again and this time say, 'this is my last will and testament' at the beginning OK?"

Stressed though he was, Taylor chuckled at this.

"Shouldn't you be researching or something?" he gestured vaguely towards Merchant's laptop.

"I just did. I found the six million."

"Six million?"

"Oh it has nothing to do with Zac. It's the Libyans. Remember how I said..."

"Merchant?"

"...Yeah?"

"Zac."

"Ohhh...yeah. Sorry, my bad." He turned his attention back to his computer and continued searching the world. Taylor brought the BMW back down into the double-digits as they neared the Arlington exit. They would decide their next course of action when they met up with Isaac.

* - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - *

"Agent Gil..."

"Good evening Mr. Hanson. I trust we're not disturbing you?" The secret service agents stood side by side in their matching suits. Isaac couldn't help but wonder if the sunglasses were really necessary at 10:30 PM.

"Well to be honest we're a little busy right now. There are some things we really have to get taken care of before..."

"I know your brothers aren't here, Mr. Hanson. You really should come with us. Zachary could be in very real danger."

Isaac was dumbfounded. He was fairly certain he and Taylor had agreed not to involve anyone at the White House.

"I understand your confusion. We were contacted--a ransom demand. We've set up a war-room for the current situation and would like you to come with us."

Isaac was flushed with emotion. A stupid ransom demand? His brother had saved the lives of a hundred foreign potentates, not to mention the current President. He had prevented wars, freed hostages, and delivered clandestine messages. Now he was the victim of some kidnapper?

He thought about how most kidnappings usually ended and clenched his fists with both fury and despondency. His mind turned to the well-stocked armory in the HanCave's lower level.

"Let's go," he growled. "But I have to get some stuff."

"We really can't wait for..." The agent raised a hand in protest and found the door slammed in his face. "...I suppose we could wait a minute." His companion chuckled. "You shut up. I'm driving."

* - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - *

Young people take everything for granted. Young people who save the world and record rock albums in their free time are no exception. Currently, Zac Hanson was considering that he often took something as seemingly inconsequential as 'breathing' for granted.

It was like this.

He was lying on his chest. He had a wall on one side of him, and some large, heavy thing on the other side. Through his wind-suit it felt like bricks or cinder blocks. As if that were not enough, as if he were not in intense pain, someone had actually _bound his hands to his feet behind his back_. The entire weight of his body seemed to be resting on his one broken rib.

He thought he might take his mind off it by composing a song, but couldn't think of anything that rhymed with "Waaaaarghlahhahahrgh."

* - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - *

As was his habit, Taylor flicked off his headlights about halfway from the driveway. He liked to try sneaking in and see if either brother detected him on the surveillance equipment. He wasn't in a particularly playful mood tonight, but habit was habit.

"We may as well not even stop," Merchant said. "There's no-one here..."

"Nah Ike's here--all the lights are on, is Navigator's still here. Come on in and we'll figure out what to do next." Taylor slowed and prepared to turn into the driveway.

Merchant cleared his throat.

"What I meant to say is, no one is here, because you don't know where your brother is, and Isaac just got into that car." He pointed up the street. A black Lincoln, parallel parked, accelerated out of its space and down the road.

"He did?"

Merchant merely nodded.