An espionage thriller, The Acheron Deception follows the exploits of an intrepid software developer that teams up with a female CIA agent to track down terrorists manipulating the stock market before attacks. It's 1987, and the prevailing winds of Glasnost have caught the Russian leadership by surprise... catapulting the confusion caused by the impending breakup of the Soviet Union to new levels. For KGB agent Mikhail Volkov and his brother, Vladimir, the chaos provides something else altogether--an opportunity to steal four nuclear weapons from a Russian test facility. Sean McGowan, a quantitative analyst designing software for the securities industry, has come a long way from the trailer park where he grew up in New Mexico. He has a good life--wealth, influence, and the company of beautiful women--until the Volkov brothers decide they need his ultra-fast derivatives trading program for themselves. When his employer, Goldberg Cohen, rebuffs their takeover offers, they frame Sean and have him imprisoned. Sean's fortunes take a positive spin when CIA Agent Beate Nicholson recruits him to track down financiers manipulating the stock markets before terrorist strikes. But first, they must use their computer skills to thwart a massive cyber-attack against the world's banking system. Sean and Beate's collaboration leads them to the doorstep of a rogue's gallery of sinister figures including white-collar jihadist Rahim Delacroix-who wreaks revenge against the infidels that killed his family; former KGB agent Mikhail Volkov and his brother Vladimir-Russian immigrants building massive fortunes in America through organized crime; and the mysterious John Napoleon-leader of the Protectorate, an environmental syndicate committed to saving the planet by seizing control of the world's commodities. Sean and Beate watch in helpless disbelief as the Protectorate launches a disastrous terrorist attack in Europe. Can they connect all the dots in time to collar the villains before they inflict more destruction? The story is laced with characters facing the same timeless demons Dante witnessed after he entered the Inferno from the Acheron River: apathy, gluttony, promiscuity, murder, deception and the ultimate sin - treason.