The Rescue

The third and final installment in the Kidnapped trilogy, The Rescue opens with 12-year-old Meg Falconer lost in the snowy Appalachian Mountains at night with a sprained ankle, carrying only a nail file she used to saw through the ropes binding her to a chair. She has been held captive for about a week by three kidnappers she nicknamed Spidey, Tiger, and Mickey, based on the masks they wore during her abduction. As snow begins to fall, Meg knows she must move quickly before her footprints create a trail for her captors.

Stumbling into a clearing cut for power and telephone lines, Meg recalls a tactic from her father's detective novel, Murder in the Mojave, in which the fictional hero Mac Mulvey taps out Morse code on a severed telephone wire. Her father, Dr. John Falconer, is a criminologist and novelist, and Meg and her 15-year-old brother, Aiden Falconer, have used strategies from the Mac Mulvey books before. Meg climbs a pole, identifies the telephone cable below the deadly high-voltage lines, cuts through it, and begins tapping the severed ends together to transmit SOS.

Meanwhile, Aiden rides in an SUV with FBI agent Emmanuel Harris, who is driving him home after a failed search for Meg. When a telephone lineman reports odd, regular interruptions on a line, Aiden recognizes the pattern as Morse code and connects it to their father's novel. Harris makes an illegal U-turn toward the mountains. Agent Mike Sorenson, Harris's replacement as lead agent, calls and orders Harris to return, but Harris defies the order and hangs up. At a ski lodge, Harris commandeers a snowmobile and winter gear.

Meg follows the clearing through the worsening storm but is intercepted by Spidey and Tiger on a three-wheeled ATV. She flees into the forest and crosses a stream on a fallen tree, then kicks away a branch holding the log in place, rolling Spidey into the icy water. She pushes on, knowing the kidnappers must pause to warm Spidey before resuming the chase.

At the Falconer home, Rufus Sehorn, operator of the popular blog site bloghog.usa, has launched a campaign to raise 3 million dollars in ransom through online donations. Meg's parents, Drs. John and Louise Falconer, are criminology professors who were wrongly convicted of treason and imprisoned for over a year before being exonerated. They defend Sehorn's efforts and express frustration with Sorenson's passive approach.

The blizzard strikes in full force. Meg becomes disoriented in whiteout conditions as hypothermia sets in. Harris and Aiden navigate by GPS to the broken cable's coordinates, find traces of Meg's footprints, and follow them into the forest. After collapsing, Meg accidentally finds shelter under a rock ledge, discovers that scraping the nail file against rock produces sparks, ignites dry leaves, and builds a fire that saves her life.

Harris and Aiden's snowmobile collides with a woodpile near a cabin, where Harris finds Sean Michael Antonino, the kidnapper Meg calls Mickey. Mickey explains that he helped Meg escape because he discovered Spidey visiting anti-Falconer websites and feared Spidey intended to kill Meg rather than collect ransom. Mickey had joined the plot only to earn money for a lawyer for his younger brother. Harris arrests him and contacts the Forest Service to organize a search at daylight.

At dawn, Meg wakes to find a young black bear cub sheltering near her alcove. The cub follows her as she resumes walking but eventually falls behind. She spots smoke rising from a cluster of rental cabins and rushes toward what she believes is civilization, only to see Spidey and Tiger through the window. She runs, but Spidey catches her.

A new ransom e-mail instructs the Falconers to bring the money to the abandoned Black River mine by 5:00 p.m. Sehorn visits the Falconer home with a suitcase he claims holds 3 million dollars, urging the parents not to contact the FBI. Desperate, the Falconers sneak out of their house and drive with Sehorn toward the mine. Meanwhile, Tiger pulls a gun on Spidey, revealing the kidnapping was never solely about ransom. She mocks him as hired muscle and declares she has a secret partner with a larger plan.

At the mine, the Falconer parents try to retrieve the suitcase, but it topples open, spilling not money but 12 copies of the Sunday New York Times. Behind them, Sehorn stands with a pistol in one hand and a thermos of pea soup in the other, revealed as Tiger's secret partner. Inside the mine, Meg identifies Sehorn as a member of HORUS Global Group, the covert organization her parents were once falsely accused of aiding. Because the Falconers are living proof that HORUS still operates in secret, the plan is to kill the family and stage the scene as a botched ransom exchange, with Spidey's body completing the cover story. Spidey, who believed the scheme was about money, is stunned.

Meg spots the bear cub approaching, drawn by the scent of Sehorn's pea soup, and knocks the thermos from his hand. The cub bursts inside, creating chaos. John throws Meg clear, and all three Falconers escape into the mine tunnels. Harris, Aiden, and Mickey arrive by snowmobile. On the road, they find Spidey severely injured from what appears to be a bear attack. At the mine entrance, Mickey distracts Tiger by pretending he has returned to help, while Harris climbs above the entrance and drops onto her, knocking her unconscious.

Aiden races into the tunnels and encounters Sehorn, who pretends to be an ally before opening fire. Aiden flees deeper into the mine. Harris finds the Falconer parents hiding in a crosscut, a side tunnel branching off the main passage, and they join the search for their children. Deep in the tunnels, Aiden collides with Meg in the dark. They take cover in an old coal car as Sehorn continues firing. The gunshots weaken the ceiling, and hundreds of tons of rock collapse, burying Sehorn and sealing the siblings on the far side.

Meg despairs, but a strand of her hair blows across Aiden's cheek, revealing a draft of fresh air. Using a strip of tissue as a wind sock, a technique from an unpublished Mac Mulvey novel, they track the airflow to a vertical ventilation shaft and climb its metal rungs to emerge on the snowy mountainside. Meanwhile, stranded Sorenson discovers that Sehorn's ransom fund holds under $1,000 and that its contact e-mail matches the offshore address used in the ransom demands, confirming Sehorn was the fourth kidnapper. Sorenson calls for an emergency helicopter.

The Falconer family reunites in the clearing outside the mine. The bear cub bounds from the trees, its mother rising behind it. Harris steps between the bear and the children, but a transport helicopter descends, its lights and rotor wash frightening both bears into the woods. Sorenson steps out to find Meg rescued, the kidnappers in custody, and Sehorn buried under the mine.

A news report confirms Sehorn is dead. Marcelle Devereaux (Tiger) is charged with kidnapping, attempted murder, and treason. Joseph McFadden (Spidey) faces 15 to 25 years. Mickey is cooperating with authorities. Harris publicly declares the case proves the Falconers never collaborated with HORUS. Days later, Harris visits the Falconer home and asks for forgiveness for wrongfully arresting and imprisoning the family. John extends a solemn handshake.

In a brief epilogue, Meg reflects on how captivity has deepened her appreciation for freedom. She swings her arms higher with every step, keeps her hand on her seatbelt buckle as a reminder she can release it whenever she chooses, and secretly frees the frogs from her middle school's science lab, small private acts born from the understanding that only someone who has experienced captivity can truly know the sweetness of freedom.