When Judd Ryker is appointed director of the new State Department Crisis Reaction Unit, he figures he has a mandate to help the United States respond more quickly to foreign crises, but he has��t reckoned with the intense State, Defense, Pentagon, White House, and CIA infighting and turf battles he would face. Then comes a coup in Mali. It is his chance to prove that his theory of the Golden Hour actually works. As Ryker races from Washington...

"A timely international thriller by the former deputy assistant secretary of state and bestselling author. When four American sport fishermen stray into Cuban waters and are promptly arrested by Castro's navy, State Department crisis manager Judd Ryker finds himself called in to negotiate their release. But the more Ryker digs in to the situation, the more things he discovers that just don't seem to fit, especially now, with relations between the...