In this novel, Court Gentry's search for the reasons behind the shoot-on-sight sanction imposed on him by the Central Intelligence Agency continues as he investigates his last CIA mission, Operation Back Blast.
[1][2] After five years of being on the run overseas from the Central Intelligence Agency, Court Gentry comes to Washington, D.C.. CIA National Clandestine Service (NCS) head Denny Carmichael has been hunting him through the Violator Working Group.
Meanwhile, private contractor Townsend Government Services head Leland Babbitt has been attempting to make amends with Carmichael after the botched Gentry operation in Europe months before.
Still viewing him as a danger to their operation, Carmichael and his deputy head Jordan Mayes secretly arrange Babbitt's assassination, to be orchestrated by CIA agent Zack Hightower and later to be blamed on Gentry.
The next night, CIA Special Activities Division (SAD) head Matthew Hanley, who is the control officer of the Golf Sierra paramilitary force and Carmichael's rival, is visited by Gentry, who wants information.
Court tracks down Ohlhauser, who is now a private lawyer and CNN commentator, and forces him to give him more information about the shoot-on-sight directive, while boarding a train into the Dupont Circle subway station.
On the fifth day of his confinement, his boss Menachem Aurbach frees him and reveals the reason why helping the Gray Man enter the United States is a dishonor to their country.
He alone was assigned by the CIA to rescue an Israeli deep-penetration agent in Al Qaeda, whose real identity was compromised, in the course of a meeting in Trieste between the AQ and Serbian arms dealers to secure weapons for the former.
After finding a home in an abandoned Civil War-era grain mill outside D.C. the following day, he stumbles upon an article by King about an ex-military assassin terrorizing Washington, D.C., that he read was sourced by certain CIA personnel.
Meanwhile, in the midst of the fallout from her doctored article which Carmichael intended to be the CIA's official version of the events, King receives an e-mail arranging a meeting for more information.
Mayes later arranges a clandestine meeting with Suzanne Brewer, a CIA senior officer who is also confused about the new players in the hunt for Gentry, and mentions what Carmichael told him, as well as revealing the truth behind Operation Back Blast.
Now having the leverage in order for her to run the CIA and force Carmichael out for his excessive power, Brewer intentionally crashes her car into a nearby hill, killing Mayes and wounding herself.
Later, he receives a call from King, who says that she fulfilled her promise of going to Tel Aviv and meeting with Alvey, and later reveals that he really killed the wrong guy in Trieste six years before.
He ends up rescuing the Pakistani, who is revealed to be another deep-penetration agent who according to the Mossad is the one who discovered his rival's identity and who lured Hawthorn into his ruse to kill him.
This was interrupted when Hightower arrives at the old AAP training facility and tells Gentry to call Hanley, who has become their de facto boss.
When Kaz finds out about the murders, he panics; Carmichael urges him to go to his fortress-like safehouse which doubles as the headquarters for the Gentry hunt in order to clean up their mess.
On the other hand, King, having obtained more information about Back Blast and using it to prevent Gentry from killing Carmichael and Kaz for revenge, persuades him to let him in the safehouse and to reveal the disturbing truth about the operation.