by Jack Slater
But there is definitely a grain of truth to it.
Several years ago, the House Oversight Committee chairman wrote, referring to the cash sent to Iraq after the invasion: “The numbers are so large that it doesn’t seem possible that they are true. Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone?”
Who indeed…
In the first year after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction determined that $8.8 billion in $100 bills was disbursed as cash to Iraqi ministries, “without assurance the monies were probably used are accounted for.”
Worse still, he later decided that that lack of accountability “extended to the entire $20 billion expended” by the Coalition Provisional Authority.
Much of this money was stolen by Americans. Millions of dollars was billed by contractors for contracts that simply did not exist. Where the contracts were real, accounts were not kept.
Sometimes, perhaps even often, this can be attributed to the chaos present during wartime.
But you would have to be naïve to think that hundreds of millions of dollars – probably billions – was not stolen.
Hangman was the result of me asking – who stole it?
I hope you enjoyed my answer to that question. And I hope you’ll stick with me for the next book, and the next, and for many after that.
Best wishes – and keep safe,
Jack Slater
September 2020
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Also by Jack Slater
If you liked Hangman, and you’re new to Jason Trapp, then you’ll be excited to know that the story doesn’t end here.
Deep State, the first book in the main Jason Trapp series, is set 14 years after the events of Hangman, the action is turbo-charged, and the stakes are even higher.
Give it a go. You’ll love it.
Deep State
Long ago, men of violence ruled with an iron fist. They owed loyalty only to themselves. Their names were whispered, but never spoken. In parts of the world, those old traditions still hold strong. Power there spews from the barrel of a gun. Laws are shaped with lead, taxes paid in cold dread.
But not America.
Because we too have those whose names are whispered. Men who know nothing but the gray zone between life and death, whose only calling in life is to do the things the rest of us dare not, the things that keep us safe.
Men like the Hangman, a covert operative whose feats became the stuff of legend. He was the tip of the spear—the man his country unleashed when all hope was lost.
Six months ago, someone sold him out. The Agency listed him as killed in action. He lost everything he held dear.
But legends never die...
The Hangman is back. And he's looking for blood.
False Flag
They say revenge is a dish best served cold.
But Jason Trapp is losing his taste for it. For six months, his personal crusade has taken him around the world, mopping up the last of the Bloody Monday conspirators. There's only one left, and after the crooked financier Emmanuel Alstyne meets his maker, Trapp's debt will be paid in full. He vows he's done with the business of death.
Unfortunately, it isn't done with him.
After a simple kill mission goes sideways in Macau, leaving a CIA spy kidnapped, half a dozen Chinese agents dead, and America's satellites burning in the skies, Trapp is propelled back into the game. Eliza Ikeda was taken on his watch, and he's determined to get her back–no matter the cost. The problem is, he has no idea who took her, why, or what they plan to do next.
Trapp knows he's being played. And with the world's only two superpowers hurtling toward the precipice of war, time is running out...
Retirement will have to wait.
Trapp is back in action. And this time, it's personal.
Flash Point
A Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system takes down a passenger jetliner in the skies over Belarus, showering the fields below in burning scrap. As the world begins to mourn the horrific accident, one man—new CIA director, George Lawrence—knows it is anything but. Three hundred innocents were sacrificed in order to snuff out the life of one man: Professor Alexey Sokolov, a senior adviser to the Russian government.
As well as a CIA asset recruited by a ghost known as the Hangman...
Trapp doesn't know any of this. He's hundreds of miles away in rural Tuscany with Eliza Ikeda, and on a mission of his own: recovery. Both are hurting, but this is their chance at a real life. Together. But it doesn't take long for trouble to arrive at their door. He should have known that his past wouldn't let go that easily.
The question is: why did Sokolov run? How did the Russians discover who he truly was—and what secret could possibly justify the murder of three hundred innocent men, women and children to cover up?
Trapp doesn't want to know.
But he sure as hell intends to find out...
Depth Charge
The clock is ticking.
In the North Pacific, the crew of a deep-sea recovery ship, the MV Challenger, are mercilessly gunned to death. Only one man survives, adrift in the ocean, and hundreds of miles from land.
In the deserts of Iraq, a clandestine meeting between one of the world's foremost assassins and his ruthless benefactor sets in train a cascade of horrific events that will shape the world for good.
And in America, with two weeks to go before a NATO summit that President Charles Nash hopes will finally bring peace to the long-simmering cold war between Iran and the United States, a network of sleeper agents prepares to bring America to her knees. They are well armed, trained and funded ... and they're prepared to die.
But Jason Trapp is watching.
And he's not done yet.
Coming soon…
The Apparatus
The Apparatus is the working title for the fifth book in Jack Slater's best-selling Jason Trapp CIA thriller series. It sees the return of fan favorite operative Eliza Ikeda, and the introduction of a shadowy global organization that may prove Trapp's stiffest test yet..