Ten years ago, a Prague police officer died in a darkened parking lot after stumbling upon a secret rendezvous between an Uzbek special forces operative and an Iranian official.Several months ago, a sightseeing boat erupted in flames off Trieste, Italy—claiming the life of one of the world's leading nuclear scientists.Two weeks ago, a mother and her young daughter vanished into the night, seized as pawns in a conspiracy deadlier than any ransom demand.Present day, beyo...

China is as tough a business environment as youll experience anywhere in the world, remaining one of the most complicated places to do business. Just ask all the company executives and entrepreneurs whove tried to do business there, lost money, and closed shop. They learned the hard way that success elsewhere doesnt always lead to riches in China.Alan Refkin and Scott Cray, with Thornhill Capital, have spent years doing business in China, and they have a long-term track record of h...

Knowing its oil reserves will be depleted by the end of the next decade, Saudi Arabia has implemented a strategic plan to maintain its global economic and geopolitical dominance. To avoid raising suspicions about the diminishing size of their oil reserves, they've carefully managed their export levels. As a result, the world is largely unaware of the impending decline in the Saudi oil supply, despite a recent statement from one of their ministers that all resources extracted from the earth...

The United States' most highly classified military weapon, code-named Vigilant, has been stolen from an unmarked Navy ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Consisting of ninety-seven missiles, each with multiple nuclear warheads housed in a crush-proof capsule, they're to be lowered to undiscoverable locations in the deepest depths of the Atlantic Ocean. However, before the system is deployed, an unknown group seizes Vigilant, making them the third-largest nuclear power on Earth. Only ...

A young girl escapes her kidnappers; the US embassy compound in Athens comes under a devastating missile attack; a US Navy amphibious carrier, returning from a goodwill tour, engages hostile aircraft over the Adriatic Sea; and an abandoned Soviet submarine base in Bulgaria is secretly refurbished. These are the seemingly unrelated pieces of a puzzle that Matt Moretti and Han Li encountered while on vacation. It started innocently enough when the two agents from the off the books White Hous...

For only the fourth time in two centuries, the French have allowed the Mona Lisa to leave the Louvre, this time at the request of the pope, who wants to exhibit it in the Vatican Museums. However, once on display, the Museums’ former curator notices a nearly imperceptible discrepancy in the painting, leading to the discovery that it’s a forgery. Faced with the crisis of losing the most valuable painting in the world, the pope turns to Mauro Bruno and his associates, who’d previously perfor...

Gunter Wayan is again in over his head, accepting an assignment from the Indonesian Minister of Defense that sends him, Eka, and Persik to Russia to rescue a defecting scientist and his wife from the FSB. Before they leave, the Minister makes clear that if they’re captured, the government will deny any involvement and say they acted alone rather than create a diplomatic incident. The defector, a Ukrainian scientist on the brink of achieving the holy grail of camouflage technology, which is...

The Cabal has secretly expanded its grip on world economies, governments, corporations, and other centers of influence for decades. Founded by a mysterious person known as the thin man, its goal is to create a new world order—an authoritarian and borderless world under one government. With its members in strategic positions within global technology and social media companies, senior government positions, and enormous investment funds, they’ve pushed its narrative to billions of users until...

A reporter is killed before he can publish a story on arms smuggling; a geologist is murdered when he tries to hand over photographs that will reveal the person behind a secret terrorist network; a dirty bomb sits in a hotel room just blocks from the White House; and a wealthy industrialist wants to harm the west in a way that will be remembered throughout history. These might have remained unconnected except for the discovery of an artifact – a three-by-three-inch piece of silver that was...

A military drone attacks a small boat off Bali and leaves a disgraced former police detective turned private investigator adrift in the Indian Ocean; an Indonesian attorney is tortured and killed delivering his client’s documents; the head of North Korea’s money-laundering clearinghouse is murdered when his car is forced off a mountain road; a Chinese army lieutenant colonel appears to die of a heart attack while on a flight to Beijing; and a server is taken from what is believed to be an ...

An Italian shipbuilding magnate and a prostitute are found dead beside each other in the bedroom of a luxurious mansion at a famous resort in Bali. A hidden security camera shows the only other person to enter that room was the victim’s ex-wife, the resort manager. When the police discover she volunteered to help room service at the last minute and delivered the food, which the autopsy confirmed contained the poison which killed them, she moves to the top of the suspect list. As if to put ...

Iran’s leadership decides to resolve their conflict with Israel once and for all. Constructing a secret launch facility outside the country to plausibly deny the attack, they purchased five North Korean ICBMs, each carrying four MIRV nuclear warheads. The key to their strike is a chink in the Israeli air defense system, which will allow them to take down the country’s missile shields, making Israel defenseless. The NSA and Mossad have pieced together a part of the plot and are putting ever...