Publisher's Synopsis
KIRKUS REVIEWS says: "A thriller with an impressively colorful cast of characters." "J.D. Knauer's done put the thrill back into the thriller novel with a deft hand, weaving a complex and fascinating tale of mayhem...making James Patterson look like a boy scout by comparison." -- Robert W. Walker, author of The Edge of Instinct, Dead On, and more. It's 1979 in Iran when Hani Zafar's mother is stoned to death because she obeyed his father's orders for her to courier secret messages at night. Under cover of the uprising at the U.S. Embassy, fifteen-year-old Hani unleashes his fury over her murder. His father's blood is the first to spill, and secures the teen's life-long vendetta against Muslim radicalism. Now it's 2010, and he is a highly educated millionaire known as Dirk Brown, President and CEO of Epic Inline; but is also a masterfully trained mercenary known simply as Nail, who is this close to obtaining his goal: the evaporation of the Republic of Islam. David Badalian grew up a Christian in Iran with one eternal dream: life in America as a doctor. Badalian escapes the nihilist's regime, leaving behind family and his doctorate diploma. He finds that a refugee's life in Germany sucks. Then a teaching university in Chicago offers an opening and his pregnant fiancee, Ava Sevani, a pediatrician in Heidelberg, pushes him to accept. Only Ava does not reveal that on the eve of his departure from Frankfurt, her estranged father, called to warn her he had inadvertently placed a target on her back and she's in danger and must leave Germany. Badalian, too, is in peril. Hired mercenaries await him at O'Hare International Airport, among them a man he helped bury seven years ago. A secret quadrant of international politicians is on the brink of world rule when they learn their hired mercenary, Nail, has gone rogue and intends to execute two major terrorist acts on the North American continent that will impact world economic stability. One such act will poison Chicago's water systems using a chemical created by Dr. Michael Sevani. The professor and his formula have gone off radar. He and Nail must be caught and killed before the attacks that will bring L-4 to its knees can be executed. David Badalian and Ava Sevani face profound odds as they battle for survival and conflicts over ethics and their ultimate actions as they come face to face with their powerful enemy and Ava's former lover...Dirk Brown."
