- Thor, Brad.
Foreign Agent.
New York: Atria Books, 2016.
ISBN 978-1-4767-8935-4.
-
This is the sixteenth in the author's
Scot
Harvath series, which began with
The Lions of Lucerne (October 2010).
After the momentous events chronicled in
Code of Conduct (July 2015) (which figure
only very peripherally in this volume), Scot Harvath continues his work
as a private operator for the Carlton Group, developing information and
carrying out operations mostly against the moment's top-ranked
existential threat to the imperium on the Potomac, ISIS. When a
CIA base in Iraq is ambushed by a jihadi assault team, producing
another coup for the ISIS social media operation, Harvath finds
himself in the hot seat, since the team was operating on
intelligence he had provided through one of his sources. When he
goes to visit the informant, he finds him dead, the apparent victim of
a professional hit. Harvath has found that never believing in
coincidences is a key to survival in his line of work.
Aided by diminutive data miner Nicholas (known as The Troll before he
became a good guy), Harvath begins to follow the trail from his
murdered tipster back to those who might also be responsible for the
ISIS attack in Iraq. Evidence begins to suggest that a more venerable
adversary, the Russkies, might be involved. As the investigation proceeds,
another high-profile hit is made, this time the assassination of a
senior U.S. government official visiting a NATO ally. Once again,
ISIS social media trumpets the attack with graphic video.
Meanwhile, back in the capital of the blundering empire, an ambitious
senator with his eyes on the White House is embarrassing the CIA and
executive branch with information he shouldn't have. Is there a
mole in the intelligence community, and might that be connected to
the terrorist attacks? Harvath follows the trail, using his innovative
interrogation techniques and, in the process, encounters people
whose trail he has crossed in earlier adventures.
This novel spans the genres of political intrigue, espionage
procedural, and shoot-em-up thriller and does all of them
well. In the end, the immediate problem is resolved, and the
curtain opens for a dramatic new phase, driven by a president who
is deadly serious about dealing with international terror, of
U.S. strategy in the Near East and beyond. And that's where
everything fell apart for this reader. In the epilogue, which
occurs one month after the conclusion of the main story, the U.S.
president orders a military operation which seems not only absurdly
risky, but which I sincerely hope his senior military commanders, whose
oath is to the U.S.
Constitution, not the President, would refuse to carry out, as it
would constitute an act of war against a sovereign state without
either a congressional declaration of war or the post-constitutional
“authorisation for the use of military force” which seems
to have supplanted it. Further, the president threatens to
unilaterally abrogate, without consultation with congress, a
century-old treaty which is the foundation of the political structure
of the Near East if Islam, its dominant religion, refuses to reform
itself and renounce violence. This is backed up by a forged video
blaming an airstrike on another nation.
In all of his adventures, Scot Harvath has come across as a good and
moral man, trying to protect his country and do his job in a
dangerous and deceptive world. After this experience, one wonders
whether he's having any second thoughts about the people for whom
he's working.
There are some serious issues underlying the story, in particular why
players on the international stage who would, at first glance, appear
to be natural adversaries, seem to be making common cause against the
interests of the United States (to the extent anybody can figure out
what those might be from its incoherent policy and fickle actions), and
whether a clever but militarily weak actor might provoke the U.S. into
doing its bidding by manipulating events and public opinion so as to
send the bungling superpower stumbling toward the mastermind's
adversary. These are well worth pondering in light of current events,
but largely lost in the cartoon-like conclusion of the novel.
November 2016 