The Lazarus Connection

THE LAZARUS CONNECTION finds retired Army Colonel turned CIA Operative Matt Gannon pursuing his terrorist arch-enemy, Salal, back to his safe-haven in Afghanistan. The blood feud between the two takes a turn for the worst in the Hindu Kush Mountains when a Seal Team is ambushed and wiped out. Gannon, wounded in the firefight, is rescued by a Kirghiz tribal elder and his granddaughter. After being nursed back to health, his presence is discovered by Al Qaeda, forcing the Kirghiz leader to make a survival decision for his tribe. A mercenary who befriends Gannon arranges an escape to Israel just as Salal's men close in on the nomadic Kirghiz. The intrigue is heightened by a sub-plot, woven throughout the story, to assassinate Gannon's parents and wife in the United States as an act of Salal's vengeance. The Israeli Mossad welcomes Gannon and, with his CIA masters, they concoct a scheme to trap Salal in the remote regions of the Sinai desert at ancient Saint Catherine's Monastery near the base of Mount Sinai. The plan goes astray and Gannon is taken alive and ultimately presented to Salal as a war trophy. It is now a race to save Gannon's family while capturing Salal. The final showdown between the two men takes place in Salal's home village where his family was killed three decades earlier. Completing the circle is a defining clash between two determined warriors from two conflicting cultures with only one possible survivor. The outcome is unpredictable and ends in a final twist in a series of dramatic events.