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More is Less. Operation Coco Nut (as it has been known, among other names) is becoming overrun with admirals, generals, and foreign military attachés. In this high-pressure atmosphere, Jack works hard to overcome his pain and loss while striving to accomplish something worthy of his lost troops.

I'll Hold Back A Bit. I will not give away too much of the final resolution, but it is a cliff-hanger and you will not see it coming (except that you read about part of it here).

Chagos Dilemma. When I researched this novel, I came to understand the horrible manner in which the natives of Diego Garcia, known as Chagossians, were forcibly removed from their ancestral homeland and unceremoniously relocated to French-owned Seychelles or Mauritius, whichever each family preferred.

It was a painful, tragic deportation, a true trail of tears, litigated still today at the United Nations and other high courts. It was likely a final major act of colonial arrogance and pitilessness that would not be permitted by any Western power today. I am sure this will be a major sticking point of political incorrectness, but I found it irresistible to involve the Chagossians in my novel. And I do not pull punches or back away from a just cause just to sell books or gain a kind word from any one.

It's a long story, as they say, and you can read it in the novel. A young Chagossian woman named Giselle Allan plays a pivotal role in helping Jack personally—yes, in true thriller fashion, with everything at stake—at gunpoint, stop the key attack in this novel, whose method is to drop the weaponized Flight 777 onto a U.S. aircraft carrier passing by Diego Garcia.

Giselle was the unwitting pawn of her so-called Manila-based husband, one Delberto Galayan, a fanatical Muslim convert, who had developed a drone guidance system, like a model airplane with teeth, designed to guide Flight 777 on its final path down into carrier group.

So there you have it. All's well that ends well, by the skin of our teeth, and may the real deal turn out at least this (desperately) sweet.

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