When someone wealthy is kidnapped, it makes sense to us. The motive is obvious, the ransom money is raised, and we may even think secretly that somehow he deserved it. But when a John Doe is abducted--a mailboy named Aaron Greene, say--we might sit up and take notice, realizing that the missing person could be our son or daughter, our sister or brother--or us.

He is barely a year out of high school, but even his former teachers scarcely remember the shy young man who disappears on his way to work in the mailroom of a powerful downtown bank in Atlanta. The kidnappers demand ten million dollars for his life--with one condition: The money is to come from the bank, not Aaron's parents. But the bank refuses to pay. Suddenly, Aaron is the quiet eye in the center of a hurricane of public outrage that sweeps the nation. On call-in shows and on every street corner, the same questions are being asked: Where is Aaron? Who could possibly be responsible for this? What is being done by the authorities? And the most important question of all: How much is the life of a nonentity like Aaron Greene really worth?

Meanwhile, in an environment he would never expect, guarded by people who care nothing for his ransom money, Aaron waits. . . .