A broken soldier. A deadly conspiracy. A world on the brink.

When ex-navy SEAL Salam al-Fayed–Fade to his friends–steps in front of a sniper’s bullet, he assumes all his problems are solved. Instead, he wakes in a hospital having gone from being one of the deadliest operatives in US history to a man incapable of even standing. Alone and wanted by authorities, he’s destined to spend the rest of his life lying in a prison infirmary.

So when a shadowy organization offers him a new identity and next-generation medical care, he has no choice but to agree. Nothing’s free, though. After a grueling rehabilitation, he’s drafted into an elite paramilitary unit. But who’s in charge?

A dire threat explodes out of China and his question is quickly answered: A cabal of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful people has decided that governments are no longer capable of controlling the chaos erupting around the globe. It’s a power vacuum that poses a mortal danger to all humanity and one they intend to fill.

With panic rising, the leaders of both democracies and dictatorships prove equally willing to destroy anything and anyone to save themselves. Forced into action before he’s fully ready, Fade finds himself at the sharp end of a mission to stop a menace unlike any faced before. If he fails, the consequences will be unimaginable. But what if he succeeds?

No one elected the people he’s working for. And God sure as hell didn’t ordain them. Has he signed on to save the human race or to help quietly enslave it?

Destined to take his place among the likes of Jason Bourne, Jack Reacher, and Gabriel Allon, Fade may not be the hero we were looking for, but he’s the one we desperately need.