Colin Pearce

Several years after a bitter retirement from the Air Force, former fighter pilot Colin Pearce has found a second career: flying Gulfstream and Falcon business jets as a daily contractor. Between the constant travel and his extensive Single-Malt Scotch collection, he manages to keep the demons of his past where they belong. It's a lucrative, solitary existence and that's the way he likes it. But then he takes a phone call while making a connection in the Atlanta airport and his life changes forever. The call leads Pearce to a dark corner of a nearby hotel bar, where he finds himself across a table from two CIA operations officers - one of whom looks oddly familiar. Over the last year, they've been following the activities of a mercenary F-16 unit which has been conducting bombing raids all over the world. Now, thanks to an informant on the inside, they have solid intelligence on an upcoming strike that could have devastating global consequences. Then, they tell Pearce the one thing he wasn't prepared to hear. Their informant was Burt Magnusson, Pearce's Air Force Academy roommate and close friend. Before he went missing, Magnusson added Pearce's name to the unit's "talent pool" of possible replacements. Now the unit needs a new pilot and the CIA needs someone to stop them. Colin Pearce, a former F-16 instructor with no family ties, seems to be the perfect candidate. Reluctantly, Pearce goes in and immediately finds himself in a desperate race against time as he frantically tries to thwart the unit's destructive intentions as the day of the fateful strike rapidly approaches. In the midst of this struggle, Pearce must cope with the competing romantic attentions of the unit's seductive commander and its voluptuous flight doctor, while simultaneously trying to evade an anonymous assassin who seems intent that Pearce doesn't leave the island alive.

Still recovering from injuries gained in his last adventure, Colin Pearce is called back to action to help a friend in need: Sarah Morton, a former monthly mistress for Bachelor Magazine and now the Chief Pilot of the magazine's flight department. Sarah Morton is one of the very few women from his past who managed to get under his skin and the last thing Pearce needs now is to have those feelings resurrected. But the tone of her voice and the urgency of her request tell Pearce this is about much more than mere contract flying – there's something deeper going on – something that terrifies her. And Pearce is hooked. A quick trip to Burbank, California lands Pearce in the middle of a situation that leaves his head spinning. The CIA quickly identifies Sarah's new boss as a member of a faction of the Saudi Royal family sympathetic to Muslims of the radical Wahhabi sect. As Pearce flies him back and forth to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, he learns the mysterious Saudi appears to be building an alliance with the head of the largest drug cartel in Mexico and Pearce stumbles upon a plot to assassinate the Vice-President of the United States and infect large portions of the west coast with a lethal biological agent. And yet it seems that this plot is a distraction, meant to hide something much more sinister taking shape in the background. Pearce has lived his life by a simple motto: "I'd rather be lucky than good." As events unfold and explode around him, he realizes luck won't be enough to save him this time. He's going to need a miracle.

Mere months after the high-speed ejection that nearly killed him, Colin Pearce is recalled to active duty to investigate a murder at his last duty station in the USAF, Luke Air Force Base, Arizona. But what begins as a favor for a friend turns into a high-stakes mission where Pearce uncovers a plot to steal the Air Force's newest fighter, the F-35 Lightning II - a plot that seems to involved the USAF's Office of Special Investigations - the same agency that was responsible for Pearce's departure from the Air Force years before. In a rollercoaster action adventure that starts with a random shoot-out on a highway in Maryland, leads to a battle to the death in the skies over Arizona and culminates with a nighttime commando raid on the complex of a powerful Mexican drug lord, Pearce will need more than his trademark luck, sardonic wit, and spectacular flying skills to triumph. He'll need to be supremely proficient and utterly ruthless. And he'll need to allow the rage that lurks inside him to have free rein. And hope he can regain control - if he lives.

For the last year an elusive assassin, code-named The Shadow, has evaded counter-intelligence and law enforcement agencies around the world. During that time, 50 people have been killed with long-range, precisely-placed shots taken from the assassin's .50 caliber rifle. The CIA knows the assassin is using a private jet to travel between targets, so Pearce's handlers call on his unique talents to help them get closer to the killer. They send him to Paris, as a contract crew member on a Dassault Falcon 7X and Pearce comes face to face with the deadly assassin, in a guise he never sees coming. From a posh martini bar in London, to the playground of the rich and famous in Saint Moritz, Switzerland, to the streets of Edinburgh, Scotland and the shores of Lake Tahoe, California, Pearce is caught up in a rapidly moving adventure that puts him into the cockpits of several aircraft and forces him to confront a ruthless killer who plays upon Pearce's own inner demons. Along the way, Pearce will have to deal with the carnage he creates with his own hands and the death that seems to occur around him. And he'll be forced to decide if he can live with the consequences of it all. If he stays alive that long.

For the last five years, Colin Pearce has been hiding from the CIA and hiding from himself. He's been living under an assumed name in an isolated place, flying tourists in the OV-10 aircraft, drinking single-malt whiskey, and avoiding companionship. But all of that changes when a former CIA comrade shows up planeside at Pearce's workplace - a woman he left for dead during his time with the Agency. On a flight over the scenic landscape of Sedona, Arizona she tells him she's not there to recruit him, she's there to warn him. It seems the Pearces's boss, Ian Brooks, used to work for the CIA as well. Brooks was at the center of a project that was ultra-classified and involved technology that was deadly beyond imagination. And now, he may have gone rogue. After swearing that he would never get involved in another CIA operation, Pearce is drawn into a complex plot that has him working with new and familiar allies. He'll risk his life against unexpected and ruthless enemies he thought were long vanquished and battle them at the controls of the mighty A-10 Warthog. And along the way, he'll be forced to conquer the violent darkness inside himself or die in the attempt.

It was supposed to be a routine trip to Chicagoland for Colin Pearce. A long-awaited reunion with Sarah Morton, the woman he almost married, and the child they had together. But upon his arrival in the western suburbs, Pearce learns that he is there for another, darker, purpose. As part of an international goodwill effort, Enteron, a large energy company based in the area, has been contracted by the U.S. Government to assist the North Korean regime's efforts to stabilize its nuclear energy program. But the CIA believes Enteron is up to something more sinister and sends Pearce in to investigate. Soon, he finds himself enveloped in an intricate conspiracy that could lead to an eruption of conflict on the Korean peninsula and bring war to the United States. From a hanger in West Chicago to a parking lot in Dallas, an alley in Anchorage and the skies over the vast Pacific, Colin Pearce will be challenged in ways he hasn't encountered before. He will be called upon to fly the most dangerous mission of his life, trusting his life to a rogue North Korean general who is desperately trying to hold his country together. And to save the ones he loves, Pearce will have to reawaken the Darkness that lives inside of him and hope he can be savage enough to take down the ruthless enemies in his way.