The ultimate spy. After fifteen years as a brilliant master spy, Nick Bryson has disappeared into anonymity as a professor at an exclusive college in western Pennsylvania-- until he's suddenly lured back into the game. The ultimate threat. Recruited by the CIA, he's been commissioned to track the moves of the Directorate. Once, the ultra-secret intelligence agency was Bryson's training ground. Now it's a multinational terrorist conspiracy bent on global domination. The ultimate deception. But to eliminate the core of corruption means plunging into his own past, investigating the motives of a beautiful stranger who may be his greatest downfall, and infiltrating a secret nexus of power called Prometheus that holds the terrifying clues to his past-- and the even more terrifying possibilities of the future... "Rarely has any writer of espionage novels come up with such an ambitious design that churns on so many levels."-- Chicago Tribune "Explosive."-- San Francisco Chronicle "Reading a Ludlum novel is like watching a James Bond film: The action is so slickly paced, the political details so all-consuming, the weapons and women so blatantly steeped in sex appeal...all in the name of discovering a truth that involves complicated weapons, wiley governments, and buxom blondes. Hey, works for us." -Rebecca Ascher-Walsh, Entertainment Weekly "[Ludlum's] most ingenious novel yet.... In just a few scenes...Ludlum instills a year's worth of Harvard Business Reviews , and provides a dead-on picture of contemporary corporate strategy.... Ludlum has been among the very few novelists who have taken the trouble and write about such market forces. Two hundred million copies later, the market has returned the compliment." - The New Yorker "A spy thriller that should keep even the most experienced readers guessing...the pace is fast, the action plentiful...a must-read." - Booklist "Echoing le Carre and Graham Greene... [Ludlum's] best thriller yet! - Kirkus Reviews "After 22 novels, Ludlum delivers yet again a topnotch international thriller sure to please fans of popular entertainment....This is a rousing thriller with all the trademarks of a Ludlum best seller--heart-pounding chase scenes, devastating double-crosses, gut-wrenching twists, fast-paced action, fierce confrontations, pressure that ratchets up to an explosive conclusion, and as always, authentic international locales, high-tech gadgetry, and sophisticated spycraft." - Library Journal Robert Ludlum is the author of twenty-two novels published in thirty-two languages and forty countries. Read by hundreds of millions world-wide, his books include The Scarlatti Inheritance , The Chancellor Manuscript , The Aquitaine Progression , The Icarus Agenda , and The Bourne Identity . He divides his time between homes in Florida and Montana. Carthage, Tunisia 3:32 A.M. The driving rain was unrelenting, whipped into a frenzy by howling winds, and the waves surged and crashed against the coast, a maelstrom in the black night. In the shallow waters just offshore, a dozen or so dark figures bobbed, clinging to their buoyant, waterproof haversacks like survivors of a shipwreck. The freak storm had caught the men unawares by was good; it provided better cover than they could have hoped for. From the beach, a pinpoint of red light flashed on and off twice, a signal from the advance team that it was safe to land. Safe! What did that mean? That this particular stretch of Tunisian coastline was left undefended by the Garde Nationale ? Nature’s assault seemed far more punishing than anything the Tunisian coast guard could attempt. Tossed and buffeted about by the heaving swells, the men made their way toward the beach, and in one coordinated movement clambered silently onto the sand by the ruins of the ancient Punic ports. Stripping off their black rubber dry suits to reveal dark clothing and blackened faces, they removed their weapons from their haversacks and began distributing their arsenal: Heckler & Koch MP-10 submachine guns, Kalashnikovs, and sniper rifles. Behind them, others now came ashore in waves. Everything was precisely orchestrated by the man who had trained them so exhaustively, so tirelessly, for the last months. They were Al-Nahda freedom fighters, natives of Tunisia come to free their country from the oppressors. But their leaders were foreigners—skilled terrorists who also shared their faith in Allah, a small, elite cell of freedom fighters drawn from the most radical wing of Hezbollah. The leader of this cell, and of the fifty or so Tunisians, was the master terrorist known only as Abu. Occasionally his full nom de guerre was used: Abu Intiquab. The father of revenge. Elusive, secretive, and ferocious, Abu had trained the Al-Nadha fighters at the Libyan camp outside of Zuwarah. He refined their strategy on a full-scale model of the presidential palace and instructed them in tactics both more violent and more devious than anything th