Now here is an interesting 'what if' scenario. What if an old hard line Soviet spy used the US-Muslim extremist war to effectively cut off the head of the US, now leaving Russia to waltz in as the new alpha dog on the planet? Then, what if you had a pretty good notion what was behind it all? To borrow a line from a classic Johnny Carson bit where he skewered Karl Maulden, 'What would you do? What WOULD you do?"
Will Cochrane, son of a Brit spy, now works as a joint MI6 and CIA asset. He and most of the intelligence agencies in the western world are on the trail of Cobra, thought to be the primary source of money for Muslim terrorist groups around the world. He gets yanked off the search for some reason and is assigned to cover the possible defection of a Russian agent to the West. He's is settled under cover in the wintry backwoods of Norway. CIA deepdeepdeep cover agent Ellie Fellowes is bringing in this asset, code name Herald. Will spots a team of Russians moving on the house. They are commanded by a major Russian officer, code named Antaeus.
Can't be. Last time Will saw Antaeus was seconds before a bomb Will planted blew Antaeus' car to kingdom come. Antaeus is dead! No, he's in his crosshairs. Will is in contact with Langley and requests the go code to kill Antaeus for good. His handler says that Antaeus is not to be touched. There is no info on why to anyone who does not have Ferryman clearance. Only 4 or 5 people in DC have such clearance and they are willing to let Fellowes and her asset be killed.
Will's gut tells him to protect his comrade and starts to take out the Russian intruders, but not before Herald is killed and Antaeus escapes.
Now what? Will has gone from being perhaps a most trusted and effective operative to being the object of a massive manhunt in the matter of a few seconds. He and Fellowes figure the only real way to get out of this mess is to find out what project Ferryman is and who is running it.
Off he walks . . . to the Norwegian coast . . . over water to Greenland where he walks . . . to the western shore . . . where he gets help from some undercover Russians watching Canada . . . then a flight in a little prop plane in some dangerous weather . . . to Nova Scotia . . . to the Maine border . . . beat the border guards where he winged a guard . . . eventually down to DC, mostly by bus despite his name and face being plastered across every print and electronic outlet out there.
The FBIs most tenacious manhunter is Marsha Gage who is put in charge of the most exhaustive manhunt in history drawing in the entire DC metro police force, every FBI agent not in the hospital, every CIA asset in town, and the renowned Hostage Rescue Team of the FBI, effectively turning DC into a police state to catch this one very dangerous man.
Will needs info on the project Ferryman and those with access. The primary players with access are Senator Colby Jellicoe, Ed Parker, former CIA field officer now a CIA Director, (just below THE director), and Charles Sheridan (one ruthless spook). And Will's going to get what he needs, put it together with what he's learned while crawling around DC, and see if it all adds up to the US being successful at killing Cobalt or becoming an international pariah, if Antaeus has anything to say about it . . . but not before a massive running firefight along Wisconsin Ave. in Georgetown.
I finished this over a late dinner. When I closed the book, I said aloud to no one, "Damn that was good."
The jacket blurb says that Dunn is a former MI6 operative with extensive covert and deep cover experience. This is the 4th book in his Spycatcher series and seeing as book 1 features Will Cochrane, my keen intellect tells me that Cochrane is to Dunn what John Wells is to Alex Berenson or Mitch Rapp is to Vince Flynn, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Any fan of Thor, Flynn, Berenson, Steinhauer, Child, Fesperman, et al. will find a friend in Dunn. A guy with amazing skills and mind is cornered by both good and bad forces while he wrestles with what he's learning and how to handle the darkness building within him . . . not too mention a fascinating twist at the end that I've no doubt will come back in book #5. Last time I thought this highly of a new author (at least to us here at MRB) was Alex Berensen and we blazed our way right through his catalogue in no time.
Puts me in a quandary: what's next? Continue with the next Longmire mystery or root out Dunn's first, The Spycatcher, and see if my reading pace can keep up with the frantic pace of Dunn's stories? And he's been putting out books at a rate of 2/year. Either way I can't lose.
East Coast Don
available from Amazon
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