Cooper Howard had always been a proud man. A good old American, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps type of guy. He, like many men of his time, thought showing vulnerability to strangers was weak.

Yet here he was, breathing hard, nearly in tears, begging for entrance to a vault. He had seen the bomb dropped. It was only seconds before the world was obliterated. He held his daughter tight in his arms.

“Please,” he whispered. The desperate plead of a father. “At least take her. Please.”