Charley Castillo and the former members of Presidential Agent’s Office of Organizational Analysis are officially “retired.” But that doesn’t mean they’re out of action… At a Mexican roadblock, a US Embassy SUV is stopped at gunpoint, three of its passengers murdered, and a fourth kidnapped. Everything points to the drug cartels, especially when the kidnappers say they will return the hostage if a cartel kingpin is released from US federal prison. But when word gets to Castillo and his group of retired spies and special operators, they have their doubts. They believe that it's a diversion—that the murders and kidnapping were ordered by someone to lure Castillo & Company to their deaths. But even knowing that may not save them. Powerful forces in the US government are arrayed against them as well, and if one side doesn't get them...the other side will.

Relates experiences in Vietnam as part of a CIA-created covert combat unit

During the Vietnam War, the ClA created and trained small teams of elite fighting men reconnaissance and covert combat patrols in the areas where the American military were forbidden to operate. These patrols operated in North Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and even mainland China. Cryptically they were known as FRAM 16, and their super-secret story has never been told -- until now. -- This account of Smith's Vietnam days is rich in suspense and adventure, replete with stories of secret intelligence missions that went unrecorded by reporters...(a) spine tingling story -- Publishers Weekly

The Explosive National Bestseller A memoir by the highest-ranking covert warrior to lift the veil of secrecy and offer a glimpse into the shadow wars that America has fought since the Vietnam Era. Enrique Prado found himself in his first firefight at age seven. The son of a middle-class Cuban family caught in the midst of the Castro Revolution, his family fled their war-torn home for the hope of a better life in America. Fifty years later, the Cuban refugee retired from the Central Intelligence Agency as the CIA equivalent of a two-star general. Black Ops is the story of Ric’s legendary career that spanned two eras, the Cold War and the Age of Terrorism. Operating in the shadows, Ric and his fellow CIA officers fought a little-seen and virtually unknown war to keep USA safe from those who would do it harm. After duty stations in Central, South America, and the Philippines, Black Ops follows Ric into the highest echelons of the CIA’s headquarters at Langley, Virginia. In late 1995, he became Deputy Chief of Station and co-founding member of the Bin Laden Task Force. Three years later, after serving as head of Korean Operations, Ric took on one of the most dangerous missions of his career: to re-establish a once-abandoned CIA station inside a hostile nation long since considered a front line of the fight against Islamic terrorism. He and his team carried out covert operations and developed assets that proved pivotal in the coming War on Terror. A harrowing memoir of life in the shadowy world of assassins, terrorists, spies and revolutionaries, Black Ops is a testament to the courage, creativity and dedication of the Agency’s Special Activities Group and its elite shadow warriors.

Offers one hundred concise methods of surviving dangerous situations based on the skills of military special forces operatives, covering such topics as evading ambushes, escaping confinement, and winning a knife fight.

Covert activity has always been a significant element of international politics. This book attempts to assess the lawfulness of covert action under US and international law and faces the implications for democratic states that covert operations pose.