The best suspense writer to put pen to paper since Alistair MacLean" (Stephen Coonts) follows up the international bestselling Firewall with the most gripping and timely Nick Stone thriller yet. Drawing on his experience as a member of Britain's legendary Special Air Service, world-renowned Andy McNab "delivers authenticity in spades" (Publishers Weekly). "McNab's greatest asset," according to London's Sunday Times, "is that the heart of his fiction is not fiction; other thriller writers do their research, but he has actually been there." Top-secret operative Nick Stone has just aborted his assassination assignment at the Houses of Parliament. Once he saw who his target was meant to be, he instinctively pulled out. Now Stone is in a world of trouble. His bosses have handed him a chilling ultimatum: fly to Panama and finish the job he's just botched, or Kelly, the young orphan in his guardianship, will be killed. Deep in the sweltering jungle of Central America, Stone quickly finds himself up to his neck in high-stakes action as he closes in on a lethal conspiracy involving Columbian guerrillas, the U.S. government, and Chinese big business. Only Stone can stop an international crisis. Caught in the wrong-headed schemes of world powers, with countless innocent lives hanging in the balance, Stone is forced to make the toughest decision of his life.