The Judas Factor — Mark Butler

Josh Hammond had become accustomed to being a family man and business owner until the people who gave him the greatest joy in life, his only reason to live, were snatched from him. After two Russian security operatives visit the family home to assist with his suicide, Josh realises the dark world he left behind years before is catching up with him. If he is to survive he must act first, he must fall back on his old trade craft, except his new life and the life he left behind are at odds with each other. One life must dominate to endure the attentions of his former employer and the instigator of this heinous crime. Hammond seeks out a former contact who has reinvented himself as a restauranteur with a black business still operating behind the façade, and points Hammond toward those who killed his family. And while the solution is simple, there are other forces at work that thwart its execution.'Soldiers do what they are ordered to do by people they trust, and hope they know what they're doing. Sometimes it gets screwed up, and innocent people become involved in the madness of others. It's something I call the Judas factor. Everyone betrays people in order to get what they want, and I'm embarrassed to say even I've done it.  It can be a small betrayal or a betrayal perpetrated on a national or global scale. It is selfish, it is greedy, and it diminishes the humanity of the betrayed. It's older than Judas and it never stopped after his betrayal of Christ.'General Stan Lacey, former Director of the C.I.A., now terrorist on the run.