Prologue

There are so many secrets, and so many have lied — and died — to keep them.

From the beginning of World War II, when our national intelligence activities were performed by a military unit known as the Office of Strategic Services, to today’s Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the newest players, the Department of Homeland Security, the uncountable volumes of suppressed information still held as top secret by these organizations is staggering.

In the years following WW-II and the official establishment of the C.I.A., born from the O.S.S., the U.S. intelligence community has carried out or orchestrated hundreds of covert operations throughout the globe in an effort to curtail the burgeoning terrorist threats that plague the many countries that are either victims of terrorist aggression or safe harbors for the fanatical leaders and their minions.

Stories abound regarding various intelligence based clandestine operations being carried out by these and other agencies, which include military covert units such as the U.S. Navy Sea Air and Land Commandos, or S.E.A.L. teams, the United States Marine Corps’ Force Recon and the United States Marine Corps’ counter-intelligence battalions. 

Combined operations between these and other Military units are the basis for many legends and war stories that have been chronicled in books and movies for decades.

Though this book is a work of fiction, it is based on the compilation of various actions that have been suppressed or have become a casualty of misinformation throughout the last half-century.

Neal Archer, a former clandestine service operator and now a private contractor to the U.S. intelligence communities, had been on alert for days now.  Waiting in the small, unassuming office in Malaysia he had been working out of for weeks.  Archer was waiting for the call that would inevitably direct him to his next hard target search. 

The call came, but it is not what he wanted to hear.  The men he was contracted to find were moving again, at least according to his operational control in Washington.  Now he had to gear up and move out again.  This time to the highlands of Malaysia to scour the countryside for the weapons and explosives suppliers he was hunting.

This search actually started years before and had been resurfacing every so often ever since.  Not enough to become a sanctioned priority for the C.I.A. and its many counterparts, but just enough to keep Archer and the people he worked for busy when they were not doing the bidding of their contracted masters.

Archer had given up a lot in his life to continue this hunt.  His fiancé had just left him and he hadn’t been home for more than a week at a time in four years.  He had no real friends and no family he still spoke to.  His was a lonely existence interspersed with moments of stark terror, and sporadic nightmares that had been haunting him for months.