It seems like it's been a while since we saw Kirk McGarvey. In The Cabal, his wife, daughter and son-in-law were killed. The Abyss occurred shortly afterward. Now, McGarvey is still licking his wounds on some Greek Island. Only his bud Otto Renke, CIA computer jock extraordinaire, knows his whereabouts. But a Deputy Director is waiting for McGarvey at his island villa (why are all sort of retired spys rich as sin?). Could only be bad news.Otto's wife, Louise, has been kidnapped. To gain her release, Otto has boarded a State Department jet headed for Cuba with the official US delegation that'll attend Castro's funeral. Seems the last person to see Castro before he died was the head of the Directorate of Intelligence . . . his illegitimate daughter. Castro has a deathbed request, and Castro told her that trusted help is one Kirk McGarvey. She figures the way to get to McGarvey is through Otto and to get to Otto, she snatches Louise . . . and it works.
Castro's secret? Something about 16th and 17th century gold that passed through Cuba headed for the Vatican thought to be buried somewhere in southern New Mexico. From here, it's a case of massive amounts of manipulation and deception from McGarvey, the CIA, the President, the Cuban DI, Castro's daughter, Raul Castrol, and dozens of minor functionaries. Almost hard to keep it all straight.
The first half of the book was terrific, but once the scene shifts to New Mexico, the plot sort of ground to a crawl and when the last page arrived and the hook for the next book was set, I said to myself, "Seriously?' We shall see. Hagberg can really write. I'm just thinking his plotting struggled a bit in the last third-ish of this tale.
East Coast Don
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