Kyle Swanson—an elite Marine sniper on the very covert Task Force Trident—is brought into a dicey situation: Spain’s economy is collapsing, loans from the Economic Union come at a very stiff price, and a group of six Muslims, mostly financiers, is offering a way out: they will bail Spain out if she leaves the EU. The goals are to reestablish the Muslim beachhead in Spain that was lost in 1492, and to ultimately convert Spain to an Islamic state after sufficient numbers of Muslims have immigrated.
To forestall this, the U. S. has offered financial assistance to Spain. The Group of Six decides to send a message to stand back. The message is an attack on the American consulate in Barcelona, leaving six Marines dead. Swanson’s team is assigned to take out the terrorist group that did the deed, returning the “stand back” message in kind. And so the game begins.
The key opponents are Kyle Swanson, the on-the-ground leader of the team assigned to send the message to the G6 by assassinating its members, and Yasim, the G6 tactician who, with his murderous son, was responsible for the Barcelona attack; Kyle. The two adversaries circle each other as they sniff out their opposition. Along the way people die, a U.S. senator becomes a traitor, and more people die. Will Task Force Trident prevent the G6 plan? Will Yasim be able to put Task Force Trident out? Will we care at the end?
The answer to the first and second is for the reader to discover. The answer to the second was a surprise for me—my first Kyle Swanson experience was tepid, but this one holds together with a faster pace, though a weak ending. It’s a pretty good thriller. Three stars.