“Where’s my wife?” demanded Voda, but the man didn’t react. Bullets burst through the front of the house, shattering the windows.

“Lights! Lights! Kill the lights!” yelled one of the security people.

Voda ran into his office. He ducked down behind the desk and began working the combination to the small safe. He missed the second number and had to start again.

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The tumblers clicked; he slapped open the safe and reached into the bottom, where he had two pistols, one a relatively new Glock and the other an ancient American revolver.

As he rushed from the room, bullets began hitting the rear of the house. The security forces outside were firing furiously; one was firing from upstairs.

Oana Mitca, gun drawn, appeared in the hall.

“Where is my wife?” demanded Voda.

“She’s in the kitchen. Mr. President, we are under attack.”

“Call the army post up the road,” said Voda, rushing past.

He yelled for Sergi, his assistant, forgetting that he had left about an hour earlier for a dinner date.

He found Mircea huddled behind the counter of the kitchen with Lienart, the security shift supervisor, who was yelling into his satellite phone.

“We are under attack by the guerrillas,” said Lienart, who had already called the army. “Send everyone you have. Send them now!”

“Mircea.” Voda grabbed his wife’s hand. “Come on.”

She looked up at him from the floor. “Why?” she said.

“Why are they after us?”

“The army is five minutes away, Mr. President,” said Lienart.

Just then a rocket-propelled grenade or perhaps a mortar shell struck the back of the house. The brick walls held, but the blast blew out the glass from the windows, sending the shards flying through the rooms. Lienart ran to the window, peered out, then began firing his submachine gun.

“We’re going to the basement,” Voda said, pulling his wife with him.

“Go!” yelled Oana Mitca.

“Come with us!” Voda told her.

She hesitated for a moment. Voda grabbed her arm.

“Now!” he said.

Another shell rocked the house. This one landed on the roof and descended into the second floor before exploding.

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Debris showered from above, and part of the kitchen wall crumbled. A beam slapped downward, striking the nanny across the shoulder and throwing her to the floor. Voda let go of his wife and ran to her. As he tried to pull the timber off, another shell hit the house. Red flashed through the house, the air filled with dust and smoke.

“Go,” whispered Oana.

Voda glanced across the floor, made sure his wife was still there, then reached under the fallen beam. He leveraged his back against it, pushing it upward. Oana Mitca crawled forward, groaning as she came free.

“We need to protect you,” she said. Her voice was practically drowned out by the sound of submachine guns.

“Yes, protect us downstairs,” said Voda. “Stay with the boy. That’s your post.”

He pushed her next to his wife, then led them to the door.

Just as they started down the stairs, another large round hit the house. The rumbling explosion shook Voda off his feet; he fell down the stairs, tumbling into the women.

They helped each other up. Voda gave his wife the Glock, figuring she would do better with it than the revolver.

“Where’s Julian?” asked Oana Mitca.

“This way, come on,” said Voda, leading them back to the storage room. He kept flashlights near the entrance to the room, but it wasn’t until he started through the doorway that he remembered them. He went back, calling to his son as he grabbed them.

“Julian, Julian, we’re here,” he said. “Papa’s here.”

There was no answer. He switched a flashlight on, worrying that Julian had somehow snuck by him and was upstairs.

Then he realized he must be in the root cellar around the back of the workshop, unable to hear. He moved through the cobwebs and dust, snaked around the shelves which had once held preserved vegetables, and pulled up the trapdoor.

“Julian?”

“Papa, I’m scared.”

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“It’s OK. Here’s a flashlight.” He tossed down the light he was holding and lit another. “Down. Come on,” he told his wife and Oana, shining the light for them.

Mircea hesitated.

“Julian’s down there,” he told her.

“Oh, thank God,” she said, squeezing by.

“Come on,” he told Oana Mitca.

“No. I will stay here.”

“The army is already on its way,” Voda told her. “They’ll be here in a minute.”

“Then I won’t have to wait long. Here.” Oana Mitca dug into her pocket. “My phone.”

Voda took the phone. His impulse was to stay with her, but he didn’t want to leave his wife and son alone. “You’ll be OK?” he asked.

“Alin, please,” said the young woman. “Let me do my job.”

“Knock twice on the door,” he told her. “Twice, then pause, then again. All right?”

She nodded. Voda gave her his flashlight, then squeezed around the shelves. It was hard to see the stone stairs down to the door of the root cellar, and he slipped on the third step, crashing down to the bottom, against the heavy door.

He reached for the doorknob and tried to push it open, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Mircea!” he yelled. “Mircea, it’s me!”

He couldn’t hear anything. He pounded on the door, then tried it again. It still wouldn’t budge. Desperate, Voda raised the pistol and was about to fire when he heard the loud creak of the door’s hinges.

“It’s me, it’s me!” he yelled, sliding inside.

“Papa!” yelled Julian.

“Alin, what’s going on?” asked his wife.

“The army will be here in a second,” he said. “How did you lock this door?”

“I didn’t. I jammed the hatchet head against the handle.”

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She showed him. The blade slipped in under the handle, sliding against the spindle and keeping it from turning.

He took the flashlight from Julian. The walls on either side of the door had iron hooks positioned so a board could be placed across it and keep it closed, but there was no board nearby to lock it down with. He glanced around the cellar, looking for something to use. There had once been a set of shelves against the wall, but the wood was long gone; all that remained were the stones that had supported them.

An old rug sat on the floor. Desperate, Voda grabbed at it, hoping it hid boards. Instead, he saw a smooth piece of metal—a small trapdoor they had never explored.

The explosions were continuing, and growing more intense.

“What happened to the army?” his wife asked.

“They’re on their way,” Voda told her, dropping to his knees to see if he could open the metal. It was solid, but more the size of a grate than a door.

“Papa are we going to be OK?”

“We’re going to be fine Julian. Mircea, help me.”

“If we’re going to be fine, why are we hiding?” asked Julian.

“Help me with this. Let’s see how strong you are,” Voda told his son, straining to pull up the metal.

Though thin, the trapdoor was very heavy. Finally, with Mircea’s help, Voda managed to push it slightly aside, then pushed with his heels to reveal an opening about two feet by a foot and a half.

It was part of an old cistern system, designed at some point in the very distant past to supply water to the house. The walls were overgrown with blackish moss. About four feet down, it opened into what looked like a tunnel.

“We can’t go down there, Voda,” said Mircea.

“I didn’t say we were going to.”

He went back to the door.

“I’m going up and getting some of the boards to block us 314

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in,” he told his wife. “I’ll knock twice, pause, then knock again. Twice. You’ll hear my voice.”

“Where is the army?” Mircea demanded. “Why aren’t they here?”