ASSASSINATION A Secret Service agent is dead, an apparent suicide. A presidential candidate narrowly escapes an assassin's bullet. And Desk Three, a covert branch of the NSA, is searching for a chilling connection deep inside the Republic of Vietnam. INTERROGATION Once, Charlie Dean was a Marine sniper in Quang Nam Province. Today he's a Deep Black operator, returning to Vietnam to find the source of some threatening e-mail. Instead, he comes face to face with a man he once hunted down...and thought he had killed. FEAR FOR THE NATION... Back in the U.S., Deep Black agent Lia DeFrancesca has uncovered the trail of a killer in Dean's path. Now, with every asset, weapon, bug and high-tech magic wand Desk Three can wave, the agents enter a terrifying global race against time. Because ghosts of the past have risen to life...to strike a death blow at the heart of the U.S.A. "Coonts knows how to write and build suspense." - The New York Times Book Review