The Hostage — W.E.B. Griffin

By Order of the President, the first novel in Griffin's crackling new Presidential Agent series, won immediate acclaim from critics and fans alike. 'True virtuosity,' praised the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. 'Cutting-edge,' agreed Publishers Weekly. 'The end leaves readers standing on the tarmac waiting for Castillo and his newly minted band of can-do compatriots to touch down and carry them away again on a new adventure.'
Charley Castillo works with the Department of Homeland Security, but more and more is the man to whom the President turns when he needs an investigation done discreetly. And no situation demands discretion more than the one before them now.
An American diplomat's wife is kidnapped in Argentina, and her husband murdered before her eyes. Her children will be next, she is told, if she doesn't tell them where her brother is - a brother, as it turns out, who may know quite a bit about the burgeoning UN/Iraq oil-for-food scandal. There is an awful lot of money flying around, and an awful lot of hands are reaching up to grab it - and some of those hands don't mind shedding as much blood as it takes.
Before the investigation is over . . . It might even be Castillo's blood.