Stephen Coonts' Deep Black Dark Zone

A Secret Service agent is dead, an apparent suicide. A presidential candidate narrowly escapes an assassin’s bullet. And Desk Three, a convert branch of the NSA, is searching for a chilling connection deep inside The Republic of Vietnam.

Once, Charlie Dean was a Marine sniper in Quang Nam Province. Today he’s a Deep Black operator, returning to Vietnam to find the source of some threatening e-mails. Instead, he comes face to face with a man he had once hunted down…and thought he had killed.

Back in the U.S., Deep Black agent Lia DeFrancesca has uncovered the trail of a killer in Dean’s path. Now, with every asset, weapon, bug and high-tech magic wand Desk Three can wave, the agents enter a terrifying global race against time. Because ghosts of the past have risen to life…to strike a death blow into the heart of the U.S.A.

Two massive ships are on a dual path to destruction. One is a freighter carrying nuclear materials to Japan; the other, a cruise ship heading for the Mediterranean. Neither will reach their destinations. Two factions—Japanese eco-terrorists and Middle East extremists—have joined forces to infiltrate the ships, incapacitate the crew, and change course toward a common target:
The United States of America.

In Washington, Charlie Dean and a team of commandos are dispatched on a life-or-death mission to blow the hijackers’ plot out of the water. Their plan: board the ship unnoticed, pose as ordinary passengers, and overtake the terrorists. But time is running out. The seized ships are crossing the Atlantic with the combined strength of a full-scale nuclear torpedo. And New York City is just on the horizon.…

In the Arctic, two American intelligence operatives are kidnapped while investigating Russian submarines—a constant, covert presence beneath the ice caps. In Washington, ex-Marine Charlie Dean and his team at Desk Three trace the abduction back to the Russian mafiya, who have their sights set on the massive reserves of oil that lie thousands of feet below the ocean’s floor.

While Dean is sent to the Arctic to rescue the hostages, the beautiful Lia DeFrancesca penetrates a heavily guarded dacha on the shores of the Black Sea. Here she learns the explosive truth about  Russia and its Arctic oil—one that could cost Dean and his Deep Black team their lives…and drive the world’s superpowers to the brink of war.