That took a kind of bravery that grown men in my line of work would respect.

I have always been proud of Hannah, but never more than when I understood what it had cost her to break the silence she had been so carefully trained into.

The whole rescue, if you want to call it that, depended less on anything I did than on a nine-year-old finding the courage to say a true thing out loud when everything had taught her to stay quiet.

I did know her well.