Publisher's Synopsis
BEHIND THE LINES
World War II. On the island of Mindanao, the Philippines, a man calling himself "General" Fertig has set himself up as a guerrilla leader to harass the Japanese. Army records show that the only officer named Fertig in the Philippines is a reserve lieutenant colonel of the Corps of Engineers, reported MIA on Luzon. Still, the reports filtering out are interesting, and it's Marine Lieutenant Ken McCoy's mission to sneak behind the lines and find out if Fertig is for real. With McCoy is a motley group put together as a compromise between the warring factions of Douglas MacArthur and the OSS chief Bill Donovan. Together, McCoy and his men steal into the heart of enemy territory and there, amid firefights and jungle camps, encounter more than they had bargained for. Before they're done, each will undergo a test of his own personal mettle--with results that will surprise even the most hardened of them.
IN DANGER'S PATH
Desperate to find someone to unite the battling interests of General Douglas MacArthur, Admiral Chester Nimitz, and OSS Chief "Wild Bill" Donovan, President Franklin D. Roosevelt puts Fleming Pickering in charge of the OSS's Pacific operations. Immediately, two urgent missions fall into his lap: to contact and rescue a band of former American servicemen and their dependents on the run from the Japanese in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia; and at the same time, to set up a weather station in the Gobi to help direct planned aerial attacks against Japan. Pickering has a free hand to use whomever he pleases, and he is soon surrounded by many of the Marines on whom he has come to rely during the war: men like Ken McCoy, Ed Banning, Jake Dillon, Ernie Zimmerman, and--much to his surprise--a certain hotshot pilot named Malcolm Pickering, his son. Together they will venture in terra very much incognita--and with luck they may even come out alive....