This is part 4 of 5 (so far) in the John Wells saga.
John and his fiancé have split sending John to the outback of New Hampshire to collect his emotions and figure out his post-CIA future. The morning after the one night he gets lucky, he gets a call from his former boss, Ellis Shafer.
A CIA operative has been gunned down in his car. A former Ranger has been shot dead on his doorstep. A former Army psychiatrist has committed suicide, two others died under strange circumstances. The connection is they were all a part of the 10-member Task Force 673 and Ellis and the DCI want John to see if he might be able to find out who is on the hunt.
Task Force 673 was a joint Pentagon-CIA project housed on an abandoned air base in Poland. Here, the baddest of the jihadis were housed, interrogated, and broken. No rules, no paper trail, just don’t leave any visible marks. The task force was nine guys, all experienced in high-level interrogation, and a shrink to keep watch over the bad guys as well as the members of the task force. And someone is after them, one by one.
The obvious thought is that some Islamic fanatic is exacting revenge on the team for what they did and John is thrust back into the Middle East to gather information. And what he finds is shocking to even someone with John Wells’ sensibilities. Interrogations that bordered on barbaric, money skimmed by members of the task force, a connection with the Pakistani secret police, the murder of a Pakistani political dissident, safes dropped into the Black Sea, political ambition, executive level cover ups and deception within the CIA, Pentagon, and the White House – all of which started with some obscure incident in Poland followed by the erasure of 2 prisoner ID numbers from a database of captured enemy combatants kept under the highest level of security by the NSA.
The key is the psychiatrist. While what she witnessed in Poland was disturbing, what sent her over the edge? She was the first of the unit to die. Why did she spiral downward upon finishing her assignment? And who is the next target?
This is the 4th of 5 current John Wells novels by Alex Berenson. This one wasn’t as slam-bang, high body count as the first three books, but that doesn’t make it any less intense or suspenseful. This one is one part investigative procedural, one part political thriller, and one part mind game. Stir that all together and you get a terrific, almost mesmerizing tale of depravity, cynicism, revenge, political manipulations ‘for the greater good’ and an astounding lack of justice for the dead. All in all, this is one terrific book. Berenson has hit his 4th home run in as many at bats.
Berenson's 5th trip to the plate has been requested from my library. More on John Wells to follow.
East Coast Don
Good review, good book.
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