What do you think?
Rate this book
In Flight
In Flight a novel by Philip Stephen
It’s the end of the Cold War and a scheme that could shift the new balance of power in the world is underway in Africa. Desert Storm is over and al-Qaeda has been created. Terrorist bombings are on the rise. An American bush pilot working for the CIA finds himself, and his buried past, in the thick of it.
Stephen Mallon is fortyish with no fixed address and complicated personal relationships. He flies employees of oil companies around West Africa and flies himself into the middle of a civil war being fought by child soldiers and financed outside of Africa. He is ordered to find out who is behind the war but not to worry about the soldats enfants. Then, he is told to back off but, after viewing firsthand the carnage of and by children, he finds he cannot ignore these atrocities and begins to suspect his own employers are involved.
While Mallon is on the ground maneuvering around his bosses in an international death struggle for oil and power, he must deal with his own long-buried and complex personal history.
In Flight tells of wildly flawed thinking by all of the power-brokers on all sides. It is set against a backdrop of events in Africa which presage the Kenya Embassy and USS Cole bombings, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and 9/11.
In Flight - a novel by Philip Stephen
The Berlin Wall is down. Overnight the world order is changing and chaos and coups are changing Africa. The US has hit Qaddafi – the first time for Flight 103 over Lockerbie. The CIA has installed and then replaced Hissene Habre, “The African Pinochet,” in Chad following the discovery of huge oil reserves in the Chad Basin. A US oil company is rumored to be funding a civil war there to facilitate exploitation. The US wants the Chad oil. The Chinese and new Russians want Chad too.
CIA-contracted agent and pilot, Stephen Mallon has been deployed to West Africa to find the source of weapons and funding that are fueling the civil unrest in unstable and war-torn Chad. While ferrying workers to oil platforms offshore Nigeria as his cover-job, Mallon finds hidden missiles aimed at the oil platforms and learns of the child-soldiers.
After learning that someone has been delving into his personal history, Mallon is contacted by a Chinese intermediary to help with a plan to threaten the Nigerian offshore oil fields for ransom. He signs on as a very highly paid double-agent. Soon after, he witnesses the vicious attack of a village by a rebel band of soldats enfants. He watches in horror as drug-crazed children in baggy US Army-issue soldier suits execute infants with US weapons and lop off heads and hands. A complex resonance with events in his own childhood ignites his interest in an intervention to stop the slaughter but the war is being covered up. Mallon is ordered to concentrate on protecting US crude oil interests and not to bother with the soldats enfants.
In New York, Mallon’s girlfriend, Leila, discovers that she has been linked with him and believes that both of them are in grave danger.
Mallon returns to the US to discover Leila has been kidnapped and probably murdered. He also learns his estranged sister, Terry, is somehow involved in the plot in Africa.
Washington is contacted for ransom of the Nigerian oil fields and Mallon is sent back with a team to destroy the missiles. The missiles are not there.
Accepting enormous risks of collateral damage, Washington prepares to firebomb a large area around the original missile site near Mount Cameroon. This will cause irreparable damage to US political and economic influence in the region and give the Chad crude oil contract to China or Russia.
It’s the end of the Cold War and a scheme that could shift the new balance of power in the world is underway in Africa. Desert Storm is over and al-Qaeda has been created. Terrorist bombings are on the rise. An American bush pilot working for the CIA finds himself, and his buried past, in the thick of it.
Stephen Mallon is fortyish with no fixed address and complicated personal relationships. He flies employees of oil companies around West Africa and flies himself into the middle of a civil war being fought by child soldiers and financed outside of Africa. He is ordered to find out who is behind the war but not to worry about the soldats enfants. Then, he is told to back off but, after viewing firsthand the carnage of and by children, he finds he cannot ignore these atrocities and begins to suspect his own employers are involved.
While Mallon is on the ground maneuvering around his bosses in an international death struggle for oil and power, he must deal with his own long-buried and complex personal history.
In Flight tells of wildly flawed thinking by all of the power-brokers on all sides. It is set against a backdrop of events in Africa which presage the Kenya Embassy and USS Cole bombings, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and 9/11.
In Flight - a novel by Philip Stephen
The Berlin Wall is down. Overnight the world order is changing and chaos and coups are changing Africa. The US has hit Qaddafi – the first time for Flight 103 over Lockerbie. The CIA has installed and then replaced Hissene Habre, “The African Pinochet,” in Chad following the discovery of huge oil reserves in the Chad Basin. A US oil company is rumored to be funding a civil war there to facilitate exploitation. The US wants the Chad oil. The Chinese and new Russians want Chad too.
CIA-contracted agent and pilot, Stephen Mallon has been deployed to West Africa to find the source of weapons and funding that are fueling the civil unrest in unstable and war-torn Chad. While ferrying workers to oil platforms offshore Nigeria as his cover-job, Mallon finds hidden missiles aimed at the oil platforms and learns of the child-soldiers.
After learning that someone has been delving into his personal history, Mallon is contacted by a Chinese intermediary to help with a plan to threaten the Nigerian offshore oil fields for ransom. He signs on as a very highly paid double-agent. Soon after, he witnesses the vicious attack of a village by a rebel band of soldats enfants. He watches in horror as drug-crazed children in baggy US Army-issue soldier suits execute infants with US weapons and lop off heads and hands. A complex resonance with events in his own childhood ignites his interest in an intervention to stop the slaughter but the war is being covered up. Mallon is ordered to concentrate on protecting US crude oil interests and not to bother with the soldats enfants.
In New York, Mallon’s girlfriend, Leila, discovers that she has been linked with him and believes that both of them are in grave danger.
Mallon returns to the US to discover Leila has been kidnapped and probably murdered. He also learns his estranged sister, Terry, is somehow involved in the plot in Africa.
Washington is contacted for ransom of the Nigerian oil fields and Mallon is sent back with a team to destroy the missiles. The missiles are not there.
Accepting enormous risks of collateral damage, Washington prepares to firebomb a large area around the original missile site near Mount Cameroon. This will cause irreparable damage to US political and economic influence in the region and give the Chad crude oil contract to China or Russia.
322 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 11, 2017
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
No one has reviewed this book yet.