The Spyglass Account

Book excerpt: Lexi Gant, an American working in Taipei, brokers digital bonds for Lotus Pacific Finance, a private bank that specializes in laundering underworld profits. Caught spying for the U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, she flees in a panic but a deadly encounter derails her escape. On the run in a city burning with anti-American hate, and double-crossed by her handler, she becomes a fugitive with nowhere to hide. Thomas Chadwick, inspector for the U.N.'s International Maritime Authority, investigates a purported act of piracy on a cargo ship off the coast of South America. When he stumbles upon the CIA agent who ended his intelligence career a decade earlier, Chadwick suspects the agency's hand is behind the failed attempt to sink the cargo vessel. Exploring dark corners where his light is not welcome, he forces his way into the center of a covert operation spinning out of control. The Central Intelligence Agency is desperate for a major operational victory. An obscure agency department has arranged one in the form of a risky sting operation. The target: a Taiwanese billionaire crime lord. The prize: weapons of mass destruction. But before it can be gift-wrapped for a White House eager to restore credibility with America's allies, the sting operation rips apart at the seams. Lexi Gant and Thomas Chadwick find themselves fighting for their lives alone, outnumbered, and sacrificed by corrupt American intelligence officials. With a sinister triad closing in and nuclear weapons changing hands before them, Lexi Gant and Thomas Chadwick are the only two people who can expose the truth, if they can escape the reach of their own graves.