Colorado congressman Evan Kendrick is trying to live out his term of office quietly-when a political mole reveals to the world Kendrick's deepest secret...that Kendrick was the anonymous man in Masqar, the man who courageously freed the hostage held in the American embassy by Arab terrorists; the unknown hero who performed an act of outrageous daring then silently disappeared. Now, suddenly, Kendrick is a living target pursued by the terrorists he outwitted. Together with the beautiful woman who once saved his life, Kendrick enters a deadly arena where the only currency is blood, where frightened whispers speak of violence yet to come and where Kendrick's life-and the fate of the free world-may ultimately rest in the powerful hands of a mysterious and deadly figure known only as the Mahdi.

Robert Ludlum was the author of twenty-one novels, each a New York Times bestseller. There are more than 210 million of his books in print, and they have been translated into thirty-two languages. In addition to the Jason Bourne series�The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum�he was the author of The Scarlatti Inheritance, The Chancellor Manuscript, and The Apocalypse Watch, among many others. Mr. Ludlum passed away in March, 2001.