Blowback

In a near-contemporary Washington, DC, President Keegan Barrett, a former CIA director, secretary of defense, and congressman, summons two CIA officers to his private office in the White House. Liam Grey is a 33-year-old former Army intelligence operative from DC's Southwest Waterfront neighborhood. Noa Himel is an Israeli-born Columbia graduate recruited into the Agency through an uncle connected to the Mossad, Israel's intelligence service. Barrett announces he is creating two covert teams to proactively attack America's enemies: Liam will lead foreign operations, and Noa will handle domestic ones. He claims to have issued a presidential finding, a secret order authorizing covert action, and secured the attorney general's approval, though he deflects Noa's questions about congressional notification. He says he chose them for their skills and their "history of heartbreak" (27): Liam's brother was killed in Afghanistan, and Noa's cousin was killed in Beirut.

Barrett's special assistant, Carlton Pope, a former Army military police sergeant whose career Barrett rescued in Kosovo, privately asks what happens if the officers prove disloyal. Barrett replies they will be replaced or "disappeared" (31).

The teams launch operations. Liam raids a bot farm run by the GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency, outside Saint Petersburg, destroying servers and planting evidence to frame Belarus. Barrett texts a congratulatory message in real time, revealing surveillance capabilities that unsettle Liam. Noa captures a Chinese espionage cell in Los Gatos, California, informing the operatives they will be sent to undisclosed locations with no legal rights.

Vice President Laura Hernandez collapses at a dinner in Las Vegas and falls into a coma. Barrett receives the news with minimal concern. Operations escalate: Liam destroys a Hezbollah outpost in Venezuela; Noa forces a corrupt senior CIA officer to resign. Barrett meets the teams again and reframes a Stewart Brand quote as "We are an empire, we might as well be good at it" (98). Noa is alarmed by his conflation of threats to the nation with threats to himself. Meanwhile, fabricated financial documents are anonymously delivered to Speaker of the House Gwen Washington, eroding her political standing.

Liam's ex-wife, Kay Darcy, a Washington Post reporter, tells him she is investigating Barrett's paramilitary network, confirming that the operations have leaked. Noa confides in her friend Gina Stasio from the CIA's Office of Technical Services, the Agency's technical support and disguise unit, who advises her to keep secret records.

During a Paris mission against ISIS fighters, Liam's team loses its drone and improvises a direct assault. Team member Boyd Morris is fatally shot during the escape. Barrett refuses to authorize a Memorial Star, the CIA's honor for officers killed in service, stating Boyd "didn't die for the Agency or the nation. He died for me" (197).

Noa's team ambushes operatives from Iran's Quds Force, the country's external operations arm, near the National Ground Intelligence Center in Charlottesville, Virginia. When a wounded fighter cannot be taken to a hospital without exposing the CIA's domestic role, Noa executes him. Barrett reveals he captured the act on drone video and uses it to blackmail her, threatening sexual assault and disappearance if she refuses to continue.

Liam learns from Captain Spencer Webster, his former Army medic now at the White House Medical Unit, that Barrett exhibited signs of paranoia during a routine physical, including plans to use death-row prisoners as food tasters. Spencer agrees to go public but is shot dead shortly after. Liam is certain Barrett ordered the killing and goes dark.

Noa's team member Aldo Sloan, a former FBI agent, uncovers that evidence Barrett used to justify arresting Donna Otterson, a CIA finance officer, was doctored. Otterson had been passing records of suspicious spending from the president's Special Access Account, a secret presidential funding mechanism, to Kay Darcy, not to Chinese intelligence. She killed herself with hidden cyanide during detention. Barrett fabricated her entire espionage case.

Hannah Abrams, a veteran field operative, forces her Senate confirmation as CIA director over Barrett's objections and begins investigating his activities. Her deputy discovers through DNA analysis that Benjamin Lucas, a young CIA operative captured by Chinese intelligence during a failed defection operation in South Africa, is Barrett's biological son.

Liam and Noa attempt to share what they know but are incapacitated by Abrams's security team and brought to her Georgetown home. Abrams debriefs them and reveals that Barrett has neutralized every constitutional check: The vice president is comatose, the speaker is under fabricated investigation, and key cabinet members are overseas. She enlists both officers to help force Barrett's resignation before he starts a war.

Chin Lin, Benjamin's former girlfriend and a Chinese intelligence officer who was forced to participate in his capture, contacts Abrams and offers a deal: If Liam rescues Benjamin, Lin will reveal how to reverse the vice president's coma. Abrams dispatches Liam to South Africa via a classified hypersonic jet that arrives in just over two hours. An assassination attempt on Liam at a gas station is foiled by a decoy from the director's security team. Noa meets Kay Darcy, who reveals Otterson's records showed Barrett using secret funds to purchase weapons traced to the Iranian cell Noa ambushed and transferring millions to upgrade government continuity bunkers. Barrett is preparing for war. A tactical team raids Kay's apartment; Noa escapes wounded and reaches Abrams's home.

Barrett meets Xi Dejiang, China's senior intelligence representative in Washington, and rejects all compromise. When Dejiang threatens to execute Benjamin, Barrett invokes the medieval story of John Marshal, who refused to save his hostage son, claiming he still possessed "the hammer and forge to produce another son, even finer" (349). Barrett then orders Case Shanghai, a full-spectrum cyberattack on China set for noon, falsely telling the Cybercommand general that all officials have approved.

In Johannesburg, Liam infiltrates the Chinese intelligence annex disguised as a firefighter during an evacuation Lin stages, breaches Benjamin's cell, and carries him out. Lin shoots two armed guards at the gate with Liam's pistol, and they escape to a safe house. Lin dictates instructions to a recruited asset at Walter Reed for treating the vice president: A ceramic nerve-agent device, implanted in her neck via a VR headset at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, must be surgically removed.

Abrams reaches the White House after Pope, who planned to have her assassinated, is arrested by FBI agents. In the Oval Office, she plays an audio recording of Barrett threatening Noa, captured by a concealed dental device, and reveals her companion is Noa herself in disguise, prepared by Gina Stasio, providing a live witness. Learning Barrett has ordered the cyberattack, Abrams demands his immediate resignation. Barrett signs, calculating he can reassert control from a government bunker after the chaos begins.

At Walter Reed, surgeons remove the device from the vice president's neck. Abrams administers the presidential oath to a barely conscious Laura Hernandez. The nuclear authorization card is found in Hernandez's stored clothing. With seconds to spare, President Hernandez issues the cancellation order to Cybercommand, where the duty general had independently delayed execution to seek confirmation.

At the South African safe house, Liam sends Benjamin and Lin through an escape tunnel and fights off mercenaries alone until an RPG collapses the building on him. The Chinese team digs him out after the crisis ends and arranges his return. Barrett, confined under surveillance, faces criminal prosecution. He puts his grandfather's pistol in his mouth, but the FBI has removed the firing pin. Benjamin and Lin are relocated under new identities to Minnesota; Benjamin is never told Barrett is his father. Abrams refuses Liam's and Noa's resignations, ordering them to remain as leaders who can prevent future abuses, and arranges a Memorial Star for Boyd Morris.