El Salvador: America's great Cold War success story and the model for
Iraq's fledgling democracy if one ignores the grinding poverty, the
corruption, the spiraling crime, and a murder rate ranked near the top
in the hemisphere. This is where Jude McManus works as an executive
protection specialist, currently assigned to an American engineer
working for a U.S. consortium.
Ten years before, at age seventeen, he saw his father and two Chicago
cop colleagues arrested for robbing street dealers. The family fell
apart in the scandals wake, his disgraced dad died under suspicious
circumstances, and Jude fled Chicago to join the army and forge a new
life. Now the past returns when one of his father's old pals appears.
The man is changed he's scarred, regretful, self-aware and he helps Jude
revisit the past with a forgiving eye. Then he asks a favor not for
himself, but for the third member of his dad's old crew. Even though
it's ill-considered, Jude agrees, thinking he can oblige the request and
walk away, unlike his father. But he underestimates the players and the
stakes and he stumbles into a web of Third World corruption and personal
betrayal where everything he values and everyone he love is threatened.
And only the greatest of sacrifices will save them.
