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Genre: Thriller
Plot Outline: A veteran but controversial CIA officer develops an American suicide
bomber program, with spectacular though increasingly disturbing results.
Plot Summary: Withering criticism of the CIA in the aftermath of 9/11 terrorist
attacks prompts CIA Director Whitley Barrow to fund several “offshore”
counterterrorist programs. Barrow appoints his Agency classmate, CIA veteran
operative and ideologue, Frank Wheeler, whose methods are unorthodox though
effective, to recruit, train and deploy American borne suicide bombers to attack
sensitive Islamic targets. The attacks are designed to appear as tribal warfare
among Islamic sects and extremists. The program is perversely code named,
“Gettysburg.”
As Hartel and Cahill begin to trace Gettysburg, they are unexpectedly assisted by
an anonymous source in Wheeler’s camp, who has grown increasingly alarmed
at the mounting death toll of innocent civilians in Gettysburg suicide bombings.
Cahill and Hartel, who are juggling a resurgence of sexual and emotional
attraction, must also wrestle with ethical questions surrounding the means and
ends of Wheeler’s increasingly lethal but effective program.
Cahill and Hartel expose Barrow’s perfidy and Wheeler’s violence, just as the
bombings are taking a new and more sinister turn. However, realizing that he is
cornered, Wheeler personally undertakes one, final run….