As the war in Vietnam wound down in 1974, Colonel Charlie Donnegan was pissed that the US had lost the war. He was pissed at the government for their inefficiency in running the war. He was a battalion ranger commander, and despite the rest of the military pulling out of Nam, he left a bunch of volunteers there to hurt the enemy as best they could, wherever they could.
While his men attacked targets of opportunity in and around Vietnam, Charlie advanced in rank, then resign with a job as assistant director of the CIA. After the Director was killed by a hit and run driver in DC, Charlie was elevated to director. But, that wasn’t the end of his plans. Eventually, he ran for president, and knowing a lot of secrets about a lot of people, in and out of government, he won handily. Now, he was in charge. Screw the rest of government. Screw the International Community. He was going to get rid of these fucking terrorists any way he could!
Walter Herndon, the Director Charlie Donnegan had hand picked to succeed him, reluctantly went along with the presidents plans, even though it worried the hell out of him.
Arnold Johnson, Arnie to his men, was a former company commander under Charlie Donnegan. Arnie was totally devoted to doing the colonels bidding and had no compunctions about killing man woman or child to carry out his orders from his former commander. Arnie and some thirty of the survivors from the rangers left in Vietnam at the end of the war by Charlie had lived for years in the mountains of New Mexico, waiting for whatever tasks the new president assigned them.
His name had been Robert Daugherty in the army, but now, as a plant at the CIA to keep an eye on things for the president, his name was Joseph Barger and would play an important role in keeping him informed of the goings on with the director, who Charlie really didnt feel he could trust completely.
Joseph Barger was a former drug runner, who joined the army to escape being killed by rival drug dealers. After Vietnam, Charlie had groomed him to a point where he could easily be mistaken for a Harvard graduate or a corporation executive. After successfully taking out a number of foreign targets, Arnie and his men begin assassinating others he disagrees with, like Senators. He blames the assassinations on foreign terrorists.
Joseph Barger has been assigned to St. Louis as an employee of First Star Electronics, a CIA owned company. Also, he has a woman agent acting as his wife. She has two children. They are posing as a typical upper-middle-class family, living in St. Charles, a St. Louis suburb. But, something doesn’t go as planned. Joseph not only falls in love with her, he falls in love with her two young children.
When Joseph and an old partner fly supplies and drop them to Arnie and his men in South America, they are supposed to die from the poison put in the coffee thermos aboard the plane. Arnie is unaware that Joseph doesn’t drink coffee. But when his co-pilot friend dies, Joseph figures out he was murdered. He parachutes from the plane, allowing it to fly into the ocean off the coast of Mexico, then it becomes a race to get Betty and her kids out of harm’s way.
Because Joseph doesn’t die as he was supposed to, now he is Arnie enemy, and Arnie must kill him at any cost. Even Arnie, although he is about as insane a killer as one would find, doesn’t realize the president is totally mad. Also, he doesn’t realize the presidents ultimate plan is to take over the country as a virtual dictator.
When Walter Herndon, CIA Director, finally figures out Charlie is behind the domestic killings, now, he too is the enemy and must be eliminated. An attempt on his life is unsuccessful, but he doesn’t know whom to trust.
