My background is law, certainly not satellites or espionage. I’m more terrified of high-tech electronic gadgets today than a year ago. It’s all fiction, folks. I know very little about spies, electronic surveillance, satellite phones,smartphones, bugs, wires, mikes, and the people who use them. If something in this novel approaches accuracy, it’s probably a mistake.Bologna, however, is very real. I had the great luxury of tossing a dart at a map of the world to find a place to hide Mr. Backman. Almost anywhere would work. But I adore Italy and all things Italian, and I have to confess that I was not blindfolded when I threw the dart.

In his final hours in the Oval Office the outgoing President grants a controversial last-minute pardon to Joel Backman. a notorious Washington power broker who has spent the last six years hidden away in a federal prison. What no one knows is that the President issues the pardon only after receiving enormous pressure from the CIA. It seems that Backman. in his power broker heyday, may have obtained secrets that compromise the world’s most sophisticated satellite surveillance system.

Backman is quietly smuggled out of the country in a military cargo plane, given a new name, a new identity, and a new home in Italy.Eventually, after he has settled into his new life, the CIA will leak his whereabouts to the Israelis, the Russians, the Chinese and the Saudis.Then the CIA will do what it does best: sit back and watch. The question is not whether Backman will survive - there’s no chance of that. The question the CIA needs answered is, who will kill him?

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36