The silenced sniper shot rips through the low hanging branch just inches above the head of one of Wade Hanna’s men. The thick covered woods and dark misty night make that shot impossible without the assistance of a night vision scope. This attack was no warning or accidental discharge and certainly not part of the night navigation exercise at Fort Benning.
Unarmed, Wade Hanna and one of his men belly crawl quietly through the thick undergrowth toward the shooter. As they approach the sniper’s lair a twig snaps under foot as the sniper vacates his camouflaged position and leaves the area.
Before daybreak the next morning authorities discover the lifeless body of the expected sniper, James Lockhart, in a dingy motel room 40 miles east of the base. Lockhart’s death is promptly pronounced an obvious suicide by base psychiatrist Captain Jarvis. The old-school detective Gabe Morrison, quick on the scene doesn’t buy the suicide explanation. His instincts tell him something else happened and he wants a full autopsy.
This sniper was no ordinary infantryman but a decorated Special Forces soldier who survived three tours of recon duty in Vietnam. His platoon was working under the direction of a CIA operative who gave the order to enter Cambodia on a night mission. A surprise ambush wiped out Lockhart’s entire platoon while he stood duty at another location. The official report said the ambush was caused by a double agent and Viet Cong spy working against the CIA. Lockhart suffered from battle fatigue but what he learned about the misdealing’s of Senior U.S. officers in Vietnam at the time of the ambush was all true. He had to be silenced.
What killed Lockhart were not his own actions from distorted illusions or depressed mental condition from the war. His death was caused by a professional death squad using state-of-the-art exotic drugs that first paralyzed him before staging the “suicide” murder.
As Wade Hanna nears completion of his final training as a CIA operative he becomes suspicious of his own agency over the Lockhart matter and pursues the killer without their knowledge or consent. With help from his good friend and NSA computer operative, Yari, Wade tracks down the black ops assassin, Mashburn, who is believed to be Lockhart’s real murderer.
Intensive interrogation of Mashburn in Belize reveals Mashburn is still under orders of his former Vietnam military officers who now operate independently as a contract black ops group for the U.S. Government. This group controls Mashburn’s assassin activities including his recent assignment in Spain and his current assignment to disrupt U.S. and U.K. war games off the coast of Belize. Wade must decide if he will return to the U.S. to save his career or stay and avert the next planned assignation in Belize.
