“...his reaction was automatic; instinctive. He pushed the bolt closed as he placed the crosshairs on the truck. The necessary adjustments for range and the drop in altitude were made instantly. The echo of the big .300 WinMag cartridge crackled through the canyons like desert thunder, and the left headlight of the pickup exploded in a silvery cloud. A second later the right headlight followed suit. He slammed the third round into the rifle’s chamber...”

Thus John McClernand, raised by his Navajo grandfather to become the clan tracker and hunter, is thrust into an adventure that will take him from the high deserts of Arizona into the heart of the Caribbean. A Marine Corps Recon Team sniper, John will be moved by his personal sense of destiny to join a group of mercenaries, some of them Vietnam veterans, on a covert mission tasked with destroying a secret biological warfare center in Havana. He cannot foresee that he and his companions will find themselves cut off from CIA resources; forced to become the allies of Cuban dissidents...veterans of that island nation’s war in Angola...and with the very scientists whom they were sent to “neutralize.”

…Bannon’s left hand swept the man’s gun arm away as his right palm came up hard; straight into his assailant’s chin. The body spun, slamming onto the ground with full impact. The throw was meant to disable, but it was too fast, the packed gravel trail too hard.

     Bannon studied the man’s face. The eyes were rolled up into the sockets and there was no indication he was breathing. Rising to one knee Bannon checked for a pulse. There wasn’t one.

     “Damn,” he swore, sinking back into a sitting position.

     “Damn, is right,” Frank seconded the opinion, his voice shaking, “we just killed two guys. What the hell are we doing?”

It would not take long for Al Bannon, ex-green beret officer and recently the leader of a covert action team in Cuba, to find out. The bodies of the two would-be assassins would hold the clues that will send him to Alaska. 

He will once again find himself facing the murderous ex-KGB director, Alexei Kutakhov, and a new opponent...a brutal killer with ties to Vietnam and Bannon’s past. Only Bannon and a handful of veterans of the Cuban mission will be on hand to keep the Russian’s deadly plan from succeeding.

The prize for which they will do battle is nothing less than the very future of democracy in the struggling republic of Russia.

A native of the Pacific Northwest, Dick Barnes has been an outdoor guide and an instructor of judo. He is currently a management consultant and a professor of graduate business studies. His monthly columns and feature business articles are published throughout the US and Canada.

When not involved in these pursuits he may be found wandering from Arizona to Alaska; reviewing locations for his next book and seeking the perfect fly fishing stream.