howard g. altermatt

Following a successful, major drug bust by the US Drug Enforcement Administration in Chiang Rai Province, Thailand, a vicious, Golden Triangle drug lord, code named “Maestro”, decides he will change the rules of the game. His shadowy assassins murder a family member of a senior DEA agent in broad daylight. The ripples from this act reach all the way to the White House, where President Reagan orders in the CIA to “Clean up this mess!” Two old school CIA agents from the long dormant, Vietnam War “Phoenix Program”, are chosen to lead the revenge using friends from the Thai Border Police, also bloodied veterans of the Phoenix wars. Fighting corruption within Thailand’s inner circles, risking compromise at every turn, the team’s reliance on covert skills leads them to the lair of the vicious “Maestro”. There cannot be a partial victory, only death to those who fail. Based on a true story, this novel takes the reader through the seamy back streets of Thailand, into the very dens of the drug trade where echoes of the Vietnam War’s brutal legacy hold sway.