Choke Point

The twenty-fifth novel in Brad Thor's Scot Harvath thriller series opens in Bangkok, where Kevin Koebler, a disgraced former U.S. Navy explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) technician turned freelance bombmaker, triggers a coordinated series of bombings across the city's most popular tourist neighborhoods. Koebler once completed Navy SEAL training and served with SEAL Team Two, but after three teammates were killed in an ambush in Iraq's Anbar Province, he carried out an unauthorized revenge campaign. The Navy stripped him of his SEAL Trident, the insignia marking him as a qualified SEAL, and discharged him. He drifted to Mexico, where a former intelligence operative named Matías recruited him to build bombs for a drug cartel and later to operate globally as a freelance contractor. Watching from a rooftop bar, Koebler detonates explosions that kill over 300 people, including more than 80 Americans.

Scot Harvath, a former Navy SEAL working for the Carlton Group, a private intelligence agency that handles the CIA's most dangerous overflow assignments, leads a team in the Philippines hunting Chinese military intelligence agents. After a firefight on Itbayat Island in which three operatives are killed and a fourth leaps from a cliff rather than be captured, Harvath's boss, former CIA director Robert "Bob" McGee, orders him to Bangkok as a covert backup to the FBI investigation.

In Washington, D.C., a parallel storyline unfolds. Connor Jameson, a former Marine intelligence officer with untreated PTSD, kills two professional assassins who break into his apartment. Jameson flees to the Georgetown townhouse of his ex-fiancée, Erin Delaney, a senior National Security Council staffer focused on Indo-Pacific strategy. Their engagement ended because of Jameson's PTSD, and he was pushed out of a defense think tank called the Sentinel Foundation. He has since been blogging about his belief that China's Taiwan buildup is a strategic deception designed to mask Beijing's true objective elsewhere. When a man posing as a DHS agent forces his way into Erin's home and threatens her at gunpoint, Jameson shoots him dead, and they flee together.

In Bangkok, Koebler reluctantly meets his Chinese clients at a gin bar called Teens of Thailand. The client offers double his fee for another bombing designed to look traceable to a specific party. Before Koebler can assess the job, armed attackers crash through the skylights, launching a fierce gunfight. Koebler escapes, but his Glock, confiscated by the client's security, is left in a dead Chinese operative's waistband.

Harvath arrives in Bangkok, where his contact is Rick Morrell, an operative with the CIA's Ground Branch, the agency's paramilitary operations arm. CIA Bangkok Station believes the bomber came from outside Thailand because the devices are far too sophisticated for any domestic group. When Morrell learns that his informant, a Bangkok underworld fixer named Tommy Sombat, has resurfaced, they find Sombat being tortured by Mandarin-speaking operatives. Harvath and Morrell kill two torturers, and Harvath chases a third across the rooftops, eventually shooting him. Before dying, Sombat utters a single word: "Teens." The dead operatives wear Breitling watches modified with covert emergency beacons, suggesting a state-sponsored unit.

At the Teens crime scene, Davika Rattanprasert (Davi), an operative with Thailand's Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) and Morrell's ex-girlfriend, allows Harvath and Morrell a walkthrough. Harvath notices that one dead Chinese operative has a Glock tucked in his waistband alongside his holstered Russian pistol, suggesting the weapon belongs to someone else who attended the meeting. CIA tech specialists discover the Breitling's hidden secondary beacon, and Harvath devises a trap, staging a dead operative's corpse on a rooftop to simulate an injured man's distress signal. A cautious female scout arrives first but departs without finding the corpse. Chinese Embassy security agents and a heavily armed tactical team follow; Harvath's team kills or captures all of them. An interrogated captive leads Harvath to an abandoned Chinese safe house containing burned documents and empty blister packs for Cambodian SIM cards, evidence of a false trail pointing at Cambodia.

The fingerprint from the Glock returns from a Department of Defense database: Kevin Koebler. Nicholas, the Carlton Group's intelligence analyst, builds a profile linking Koebler to unsolved bombings worldwide. Koebler, meanwhile, assembles a vehicle bomb incorporating Cambodian SIM cards and munitions signatures supplied by his Chinese clients, disguises the vehicle as a Thai internal security SUV, and detonates it at the Royal Bangkok Sports Club, a gathering place for Thailand's military and political elite.

Harvath traces Koebler to a bolt-hole in the Khlong Toei district after CIA tech specialists KitKat and Mo hijack Koebler's wireless camera network. Inside, they find booby traps and weeks of supplies confirming more attacks are planned. When Koebler returns and spots the surveillance van, he kills both KitKat and Mo, discovering their U.S. Embassy badges.

Back in Virginia, Secret Service agent Shawna Vaughn hides Connor and Erin in a secluded teahouse and contacts FBI counterintelligence specialist Jennifer Fields. Fields traces the dead assassins to a Northern Virginia contractor called Strategis Solutions and a name: Tom Olson. She discovers Olson recruited compromised federal agents for Chinese intelligence, connected to Beijing through a Hong Kong businessman named Wei Lijun. When Olson or his associates plant a GPS tracker on Vaughn's SUV, armed men assault the teahouse. Connor kills three; Fields kills the fourth. Olson appears at gunpoint and reveals his role before Vaughn arrives and shoots him dead.

Using a radio captured during a skirmish with Cambodian operatives, Harvath contacts Tevy, an operative from Cambodia's Ministry of National Defense. Tevy reveals that his off-book unit has been tracking the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) team through an inside source. The Chinese are framing Cambodia for the bombings. Harvath and Tevy form a tenuous alliance.

The full scope of the Chinese operation emerges through its commander, Hang Shuo, an MSS officer. His campaign aims to attribute bombings in Bangkok to Cambodia and bombings in the Muslim south to Islamist separatists, creating enough chaos to foment a military coup. A new junta would approve Beijing's long-sought Kra Canal, a maritime shortcut across southern Thailand that would bypass the Strait of Malacca, the narrow waterway through which much of China's trade passes.

When Tevy alerts Harvath that the Chinese are extracting Koebler by boat, Harvath sets an ambush at a canal-side transfer point. A massive firefight erupts, but Koebler dives into the canal, boards a workboat, and escapes under covering fire from a second Chinese vessel.

A captured smuggler reveals Koebler has been moved to Pattani City in southern Thailand. Harvath's team flies south. Tevy relays intelligence that an attack is imminent and first responders will be targeted in a parking lot. When five explosions detonate at a crowded marketplace, Harvath realizes the "parking lot" refers to Pattani Hospital, where the wounded will converge. He spots a suspicious ambulance and locates Koebler in an unfinished building across the street.

Harvath storms the building and wounds Koebler, who escapes to the street and grabs a hostage while backing toward the ambulance bomb. Morrell flanks him unseen and takes a lethal headshot. As Morrell surrenders to Thai police and warns about the bomb, Harvath slips away.

The following morning, Thai military helicopters intercept Hang's car near the Malaysian border. Tevy's team, operating under a deal with Thai authorities, captures Hang alive. In Washington, the FBI clears Connor. China's Taiwan buildup was indeed a deception to fix global attention on the strait while Beijing destabilized Thailand. Connor and Erin tentatively reconcile. In Bangkok, Harvath, Morrell, and Davi share a relaxed dinner at a riverside restaurant. The plot will remain largely classified until Thailand has evidence to accuse Beijing publicly. As the evening winds down, both Harvath's and Morrell's phones go off simultaneously, hinting at a new mission.