The Broker

“The Broker” is Joel Backman, once head of a prestigious law firm that specialized in high-powered lobbying of American lawmakers and politicians. His final deal involved peddling a software system designed by Pakistani hackers to neutralize the most sophisticated but secretly deployed satellite surveillance system to the highest bidder—the Chinese, Saudis, Israelis. After some money changed hands, he is arrested by US authorities on trumped-up charges. The people that paid transaction money for the software felt shortchanged, while those that built the satellite wanted him and the software at all cost. To avoid their wrath he pleads guilty to charges so he could be hidden away in prison for 14 years.

But only a few months down the line the CIA that is still puzzled about the secret satellite decides to get the out-going US President to pardon Backman conditionally. Their plan is to hide him in a foreign place and after a while leak his location to those that might want him dead so as to find out who would go after him, believing those people would have the highest interest in the satellite. Backman agrees to the deal though without knowing why he was being released. He is ferreted to a new home in Italy using two different names. In the course of his learning Italian, paid for by the CIA, we are treated to some Italian art and cuisine and history. He also falls in love with one of his tutors, a woman that later saves his life by giving him her dying husband’s passport and changing his looks to match the photo in it. Unknown to the CIA that are controlling his new life in Italy, he makes contact with his lawyer son in the US who secretly sends him a smartphone with which they communicate. He manages to escape death at the hands of the trained killer agents from China and Israel, goes back to the US without the knowledge of the CIA that had agents watching him, and eventually buys some safety for himself by releasing the powerful software to the US army. In exchange he’s provided two identities, two passports, and a promise to intervene with the foreign powers that had been after his life because of the software.

The story touches on how the CIA relates with the American president and their role in establishing or influencing American foreign policy. A new US president is shown asking the acting CIA director what step should be taken for the best American interest. Then there is the realization that your own American government could secretly want you dead, especially if its laws can’t get you. They can also hide you by giving you new identities, which means what some crooks do in selling stolen or forged passports and such is also done legally. The methods of grooming lethal agents to kill and speak many languages so as to be able to disguise as nationals of many nations comes to light in the character of the Chinese, Sammy Tin. How secret agents go about their job of trailing their targets, being able to shoot with skill, to kill and disappear without evidence is also shown. There is mention of how non-Americans are treated shabbily by immigration officials at airports. Kwytemail is introduced as a public but very secure email system, and Backman’s very hard to guess (and long) password could not be broken even by agents of the CIA when eventually his smartphone is discovered and covertly stolen by them. When his smartphone gets taken, Backman has to quickly learn to use a cyber-café to go online. And the Swiss as being bankers for the world’s illegally-acquired loot also come to play. In all, an interesting and exciting plot to read.

October 23, 2015. Novel first published in 2005 by Bantam Dell, ISBN 0-440-24158-8. Picture source: Google Images.

The Negotiator

This is a long but interesting conspiracy tale. The Soviet Union is facing an energy crisis, with dwindling oil reserves and production. They will have to import more from abroad, and to finance the imports less funding will have to go to military spending. Their military chief personally would rather invade Iran for their oil. But Gorbachev is in power and it is the era of perestroika and glasnost, so the military leader’s plan for invasion had to be kept in the cooler.

Following the visits of their leaders to each other, an arms reduction treaty is hammered out between the US and USSR. When in effect, it would lead to reduction in military spending with savings amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars. Due to following reduction in military budgets, it will also lead to the bankruptcy of some defense industries, especially in the US where investments had been tied up in the manufacture of advanced weapons. A group of five Americans conspired to force the American President Cormack to resign, by kidnapping and murdering his only son, but making it look like the Soviets were responsible. This would prevent the arms reduction treaty from coming into effect. With the cooperation of some highly placed military men in the Soviet Union who also did not want the treaty to be ratified, the kidnap plan was effected.

In comes Quinn as the negotiator, charged with securing the release of the president’s son from the kidnappers. Relying on skills and experience from negotiating release of kidnap victims in the past, he manages to effect the release of the US President’s son, Simon. But unknown to Quinn the US cabinet and even the CIA people working with him had been compromised by the conspirators, who did all they could to increase the president’s pain over the kidnap and render him unfit to govern. A belt concealing a bomb had been planted on Simon and after he was released, the compromised CIA agent used remote control to trigger the bomb.

The death of Simon nearly led the president to resign as the conspirators wanted. So they were feeling happy about the execution of their plan. Until Quinn, aided by the new intelligence leadership in Russia, managed to checkmate and expose them at the last minute.

The author unfolds the plot without emotion, leaving gaps here and there for the reader’s imagination. He mentions Biafra in the discussion of European and South African mercenaries.

August 11, 2015. Review initially written in 1991. Novel first published in 1989 by Bantam Press (Transworld), this Abiola Bookshop Press edition being published also in 1989; ISBN 978-014-000-X.

The Eleventh Commandment

Thou shalt not be caught. This is the 11th commandment for agents of the CIA. Unfortunately for Connor Fitzgerald, a high-ranking agent, his last mission before retirement—the assassination of a Colombian presidential candidate unfavorable to American interests—raised some dust in the US presidency. This is because the President did not sanction it. It was ordered by Helen Dexter, the director of the CIA who was pursuing her own personal agenda. In spite of her denial, the assassination was traced to the CIA. To cover her back, she plans to eliminate him, seeing him as the only person that could expose her. So she sends him on another mission under pretense that it was sanctioned by the president, this time to Russia, and does all her best to ensure that Connor does not return alive.

This time the mission is to assassinate the Russian presidential candidate. Halfway through, she exposes him and he is caught, imprisoned, tried and is about to be hanged. Through the Russian mafia, he escapes the hangman, thanks to a friend that decides to give up his own life for him. Now the mafia wants him to still carry out the assassination of their presidential candidate. The Russian candidate is elected and decides to visit the US. Connor trails him there for a very interesting climax and conclusion.

It was depressing to read that the hero, Connor Fitzgerald, had died in hospital, after his friend Chris Jackson sacrificed his own life so he could live. It was like a waste of the CIA’s two top talents just because the heartless woman at the top wanted to save her job. But then after his presidential burial, a surprising twist is thrown in just before the last page. Connor had not died after all, but had taken a new identity for security reasons. To end the tale, six months after he was supposedly buried, he makes a sudden appearance to his wife living abroad in Australia, bearing this new identity.

February 12, 2015. Review initially written in 2004. Novel first published in 1998.