Böcker av Mark Downer

<p><b>The reemergence of a World War II viral weapon sends a hand-picked team of elite operators into a deadly race to save the Middle East from devastation.</b><br></p><p>In the summer of 1945, on the eve of Japan's surrender in World War II, converging Allied armies destroyed the infamous Japanese Unit 731 and its evil architect General Daichi Arakawa, whose ominous viral creation had exterminated thousands of Chinese in occupied Manchuria. Nearly twenty-five years later, however, atrocities in rural Cambodia during the Vietnam War hint of the possible resurrection of the insidious biological nightmare, and a culpable participant in those horrors then, foreshadows a potential return of the weapon of mass destruction today.<br></p><p>Armed with the knowledge of its probable existence in the hands of the Islamic Republic of Iran's Defense Ministry and Revolutionary Guard Corps, People's Republic of China General Tzu Huang enlists the help of retired General Jake Woods, formerly of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, to help seek out and eliminate those with knowledge of the WMD virus and their attempts to weaponize it. <br></p><p>Woods' ability to cobble together a covert operational team from an eclectic background of elite male and female special ops, intelligence, military,&nbsp; and IT specialists, with help from a wealthy financier and old backchannel contacts in the U.S Department of Defense, produces a formidable stealth force out to tackle the problems our government cannot.<br></p><p>Their subsequent mission takes them on a perilous and deadly pursuit throughout the tyrannical and raging quagmires that are the Middle East, with the fate of the entire "e;Cradle of Civilization"e; dependent upon their success. <br></p><p>From the explosive origins of the team's quest and prosecution in Iran, deviating into the ravaged terrains of Iraq and Syria, the chase terminates in southern Lebanon, mission success eluding the team&nbsp; in a string of near misses until the&nbsp; bitter and unforeseen ending in the mountains of northern Israel.<br></p>

An action-packed World War II historical fiction thriller that takes the reader around the world and a peek into the underworld of international art dealing.In the spring of 1945, on the eve of the Allied victory in war-torn Europe, an unmarked German transport plane crash lands deep in the rugged Swiss Alps, and with it is buried one of the greatest single collections of World War II stolen artwork never recovered. Lying undisturbed in its rocky tomb for over half a century, a family member's deathbed disclosure and war memorabilia hold the key to the existence and dormant location of this incredible treasure. Subsequently, one man's quest to locate the crash site is unwittingly exposed, and the race to recover the find of a lifetime becomes a fast-paced, action-packed adventure that weaves together an eclectic cast of characters in an international web of intrigue, murder, mystery, and surprise.American advertising executive Matt Ferguson, determined to track down his great uncle's mysterious legacy, enlists the help of a beautiful art expert, Courtney Lewis. They immediately become embroiled in a local murder investigation that draws them together to save not only a piece of history but ultimately their lives. Pursuing them is a cold-blooded killer and his henchmen, representing the past and present generations of the German Nazi party, and also gangsters dispatched by a multi-millionaire South American boss, whose passion is acquiring art by any means necessary. As Ferguson and Lewis struggle and maneuver to stay one step ahead of their pursuers, their relationship swells through ups and downs of trust, mistrust, mutual attraction, deception, and, finally, shared mission.The dogged persistence of a city homicide detective determined to solve a triple murder, and his ability to knit together an international police effort as the scope of his investigation explodes, are the last component affecting the thrill of the chaotic chase and the excitement of the climax.