In the mid-1980s, the Iran–Contra affair was a United States political scandal that happened during the Reagan administration. Senior Reagan administration officials, aided by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, the proceeds of which were intended to fund the Nicaraguan Contras, in defiance of the Boland Amendment which prohibited the funding of Nicaraguan government rebels. At the time, Iran was under an arms embargo by the U.S., but officials hoped that the illegal arms sales would secure the release of American hostages being held in Iran, while at the same time, allow the CIA to fund the Nicaraguan Contras surreptitiously.
To pull off this clandestine feat, the CIA conspired with the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico, to sell cocaine in the United States, especially southern California. The money raised was used to covertly buy the illegal arms for the Iranian sale. One man, an investigative reporter named Gary Webb, discovered evidence of the plot and began to report on the existence of the operation in the mid-1990s. In 2004, he was found dead with two bullet holes in his skull which the coroner declared a suicide. Gary Webb apparently offed himself by shooting himself in the head… twice. Or so the coroner’s report ruled.
In 2003, the United States invaded Afghanistan, purportedly in pursuit of Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the 911 attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. At the time of the American invasion, most of the poppy fields in Afghanistan had been destroyed by the Afghan government and the Taliban. But over a decade and a half later, Afghanistan, today, exports nearly 80 percent of the world’s heroin and opium, and poppy fields again litter the country’s landscape, guarded by U.S. troops overseen by the Central Intelligence Agency. These are facts, not fiction, and their truth is undisputed.
With this backdrop, our fictional story begins in 2016, in Tampa, Florida, where the younger brother of a U.S. Senator has overdosed on heroin. The tragic and untimely death of his brother motivates Senator Gavin Manson to write legislation to reform the antiquated drug laws in the U.S. and put an end to what he sees as the dangerous and destructive War on Drugs begun during the Nixon Administration. To that end, he hires a brilliant and beautiful researcher named Alexandra Katsaros.
Together, Gavin and Alex begin to collect data on every facet of the drug world from big pharma to drug cartels to the heroin crisis in America. But when Alex uncovers a secret government plot to smuggle heroin into the United States from Afghanistan, a modern-day Iran-Contra operation, everything changes. Like Gary Webb, they now know too much, and the directors of the CIA’s black operation deem it imperative to silence them, forever.
If you are a fan of Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum or Dan Brown, this novel is right up your alley. The journey is a fast-paced ride halfway around the world as Gavin and Alex do their best to stay one step ahead of their determined pursuers. The novel’s seamless blend of fact and fiction will have you guessing what is real and what is made up. And all the while you’ll wonder, could this really happen? Could it actually be happening? The answer you will eventually be forced to admit is… yes. It is absolutely possible. Sometimes conspiracy theory isn’t theory at all.
Awesome!
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