BY ORDER OF THE PRESIDENT
Two armed men board a 727 in Angola. They slit the throat of the lone crew and fly to parts unknown. The consternation is immediate, as the CIA, FBI, and other agencies race to find out what happened, in the process elbowing one another in the sides a little too vigorously. Fed up, the president of the United States turns to an outside investigator to determine the truth, an Army intelligence officer serving as special assistant to the secretary of homeland security. Delta Force major Carlos Guillermo Castillo, known as Charley, a West Point graduate, a pilot, and a veteran of Desert Storm, has a sharp eye for the facts. Traveling undercover, he flies to Africa, and there, helped and hindered by unexpected allies and determined enemies, begins to untangle a story of frightening dimensions - a story that, unless he can do something about it, will end very badly indeed, not only for Castillo...but for all of America.
THE HOSTAGE
Charley Castillo works with the Department of Homeland Security, but more and more is the man to whom the President turns when he needs an investigation done discreetly. And no situation demands discretion more than the one before them now. An American diplomat's wife is kidnapped in Argentina, and her husband murdered before her eyes. Her children will be next, she is told, if she doesn't tell them where her brother is--a brother, as it turns out, who may know quite a bit about the burgeoning UN/Iraq oil-for-food scandal. There is an awful lot of money flying around, and an awful lot of hands are reaching up to grab it--and some of those hands don't mind shedding as much blood as it takes. Before the investigation is over...it might even be Castillo's blood.
THE HUNTERS
Two brutal murders and millions of missing dollars in the growing UN/Iraq oil-for-food scandal have led Castillo and his team to an estancia in Uruguay, where the man they seek is murdered before their eyes. Who is responsible? Most likely, the people higher up in the dirty-money chain - those willing to risk anything to keep their secrets from being revealed. They've left enough of a trail for Castillo to pick up the scent, and with carte blanche from the President of the United States to follow it wherever it takes him, he ends up...well, not exactly where he expected....
