Laynie Portland

Once a spy, always a spy. And once a renegade . . .Director Wolfe brings Laynie "in from the cold" to a place of relative safety. However, she will remain free only if she meets Wolfe's three conditions. She must accept the new identity he gives her, and she must meet with an agency "shrink" to address the emotional damage caused by her years undercover. This counselor, handpicked by Wolfe, will evaluate Laynie and determine if she is fit to participate in his secret task force. Moreover, Laynie must remain in Wolfe's witness protection program. The program will hide Laynie from those who are hunting her, but it will also greatly curtail her freedom.Nothing goes as Laynie hopes. The rules grind and grate on her. They shackle her choices and constrict her movements. She feels controlled and manipulated. Her clashes with bureaucratic culture only serve to tighten the restrictions and send her spiraling downward, out of control.Meanwhile, in the background, dark forces are at work, forces that compel Laynie to disobey directives in order to save a life. Rather than proving her value to Wolfe's satisfaction, Laynie's risky exploits mark her as a faithless renegade, a rebel whose insubordination may earn her harsh, ruinous consequences.Laynie must fight to earn her place on the task force-even as unfolding events expose a looming danger: Wolfe's task force has a leak . . . one that threatens them all.Laynie PortlandBook 1: Laynie Portland, Spy Rising-The PrequelBook 2: Laynie Portland, Retired SpyBook 3: Laynie Portland, Renegade SpyBook 4: Laynie Portland, Spy ResurrectedBook 5: Vyper, A Laynie Portland Sequel Vikki Kestell has more than 20 years of career experience as a writing, instructional design, and communications professional in government, academia, semiconductor manufacturing, health care, and nonprofit organizations. She holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Learning and Instructional Technologies. Vikki is an accomplished speaker and teacher and belongs to Tramway Community Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she teaches an evening Bible study for working women. She and her husband Conrad Smith make their home in Albuquerque. Faith-Filled Fiction: Vikki writes and publishes under the imprint of Faith-Filled Fiction(TM). To keep abreast of new book releases, visit her website, http://www.vikkikestell.com/, or find her on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/TheWritingOfVikkiKestell. Enjoy all the books of A Prairie Heritage as they become available: Book 1: A Rose Blooms Twice Book 2: Joy on This Mountain Book 3: The Captive Within Book 4: Wild Heart on the Prairie Book 5: Stolen Book 6: Lost Are Found, November 2014

Laynie, Tobin, and Jaz narrowly escape the hit squad sent by the Ukrainian mob-the third attempt to kill members of Director Wolfe's staff. Whatever the task force does and wherever its people go, the enemy is right there, always one step ahead.Wolfe admits that his organization has been compromised-that a mole within his staff is feeding information to the Chechen separatist group All Glorious for Allah. Before their enemy can strike again, Wolfe orders the task force members to immediately abandon their homes and the team's headquarters for safer grounds.The task force, with Laynie leading it, has just reestablished itself within the protective walls of Broadsword when Wolfe receives a coded letter from Cossack, his deep-cover asset in Chechnya. In the letter, Cossack reveals that he has knowledge of a large and significant terror attack scheduled for New Year's Eve. He also alludes to the leak in Wolfe's organization and his fear that passing details of the attack through normal channels will blow his precarious cover.Cossack insists on passing intel on the impending attack to the one person he feels he can trust, the operative who foiled the assassination attempt on Vassili Aleksandrovich Petroff, Russian envoy to the UN. Cossack's demand sends Laynie halfway around the world to a covert meeting in the city of Tbilisi, Georgia. It sends her to her death.The fourth volume in the Laynie Portland series is so harrowing, you'll need to step away and restart your heart.Laynie PortlandBook 1: Laynie Portland, Spy Rising-The PrequelBook 2: Laynie Portland, Retired SpyBook 3: Laynie Portland, Renegade SpyBook 4: Laynie Portland, Spy ResurrectedBook 5: Vyper, A Laynie Portland Sequel Vikki Kestell has more than 20 years of career experience as a writing, instructional design, and communications professional in government, academia, semiconductor manufacturing, health care, and nonprofit organizations. She holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Learning and Instructional Technologies. Vikki is an accomplished speaker and teacher and belongs to Tramway Community Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she teaches an evening Bible study for working women. She and her husband Conrad Smith make their home in Albuquerque. Faith-Filled Fiction: Vikki writes and publishes under the imprint of Faith-Filled Fiction(TM). To keep abreast of new book releases, visit her website, http://www.vikkikestell.com/, or find her on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/TheWritingOfVikkiKestell. Enjoy all the books of A Prairie Heritage as they become available: Book 1: A Rose Blooms Twice Book 2: Joy on This Mountain Book 3: The Captive Within Book 4: Wild Heart on the Prairie Book 5: Stolen Book 6: Lost Are Found, November 2014

Task Force Resolute holds a mandate to hunt terrorists online. Director Wolfe provides the funding and agency umbrella under which Resolute operates, while Bella Tobin serves as Resolute's team leader. Bella, however, is not this woman's actual name. It is the current identity of Laynie Portland, spy extraordinaire, a covert asset who operated under deep cover in Sweden and Russia for more than twenty years before "coming in from the cold."Enter Resolute's top intelligence analyst, Jasmine Jessup, or Jaz as she prefers. In front of her teammates, Jaz cuts a touchy, solitary, and peculiar figure. Few individuals alive, including her team, are aware that she, like Laynie, has a shadowed past, a dark history hidden behind a barricade of counterfeit identities-more aliases than even Laynie Portland could boast.At the same time, Wolfe, Bella, and Task Force Resolute guard Jaz's most precious secret: Within the upper echelons of international hacking, Jaz's brilliance and reputation are legend-for behind a keyboard, Jaz reigns as Vyper, the Venom Queen, a computer guru who instills both dread and reverence across the global hacker community.Despite her renown in cyberspace, Jaz is not a trained field agent. So why would Director Wolfe recruit Jaz for a dicey undercover assignment-one he insists has her name written all over it?Turns out, it isn't Jaz but Vyper Director Wolfe desperately needs for this high-risk assignment.As Jaz prepares for her assignment, uppermost in her training is operational security. Her handlers stress the peril that would await her should she be recognized as Vyper by someone in the hacker community, thus blowing her cover. Even so, no one could predict that Jaz will soon face a dangerous figure from her past-an individual who will hold her life in his hands.Book 1: Laynie Portland, Spy RisingBook 2: Laynie Portland, Retired SpyBook 3: Laynie Portland, Renegade SpyBook 4: Laynie Portland, Spy ResurrectedBook 5: Vyper, A Laynie Portland Sequel Vikki Kestell has more than 20 years of career experience as a writing, instructional design, and communications professional in government, academia, semiconductor manufacturing, health care, and nonprofit organizations. She holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Learning and Instructional Technologies. Vikki is an accomplished speaker and teacher and belongs to Tramway Community Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she teaches an evening Bible study for working women. She and her husband Conrad Smith make their home in Albuquerque. Faith-Filled Fiction: Vikki writes and publishes under the imprint of Faith-Filled Fiction(TM). To keep abreast of new book releases, visit her website, http://www.vikkikestell.com/, or find her on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/TheWritingOfVikkiKestell. Enjoy all the books of A Prairie Heritage as they become available: Book 1: A Rose Blooms Twice Book 2: Joy on This Mountain Book 3: The Captive Within Book 4: Wild Heart on the Prairie Book 5: Stolen Book 6: Lost Are Found, November 2014

No one is born a spy. In one way or another, every "righteous" clandestine operative is sought out, enlisted, and trained for the difficult and often terrible work intended to ensure that the principles of freedom triumph over ideologies that seek to dominate and enslave.The year is 1977; the Cold War is intensifying. Helena Portland-Laynie to her family-is set to graduate from the University of Washington, when recruiters from Marstead International invite her to dinner and an informal employment interview. Laynie is flattered: Marstead International is a technology and aeronautics firm with a global presence and reputation.But behind their corporate image? Marstead is a front for joint U.S./NATO covert operations.Not far into the dinner conversation, the recruiters make their pitch: "We have offices around the world, Miss Portland, and we actively seek college graduates with the right mix of aptitude and skills to work and grow within our worldwide market. Actually, we have been observing you for some time. We feel that you have the potential to serve . . . the interests of your country."Laynie catches their drift and confronts it. "Let me see if I understand you correctly. You are representatives of a U.S. intelligence agency, unnamed so far, and you are trying to recruit me. Do I have it right?"When Laynie accepts Marstead's offer, she is sent through the Company's rigorous tradecraft and tactical training program. Laynie soon discovers that the world of clandestine service is dirty business. To succeed, operatives must bend and twist the tenets of liberty. Along the way, noble objectives tarnish and corrode, hearts harden, and methods and means drag virtue into the gutter.Laynie perseveres at the work set before her; she enters into it because she holds a secret-a secret she has never shared with anyone, a view of herself that not only condones the awful choices she is asked to make, but justifies them.I am worthless; my life has no value. I am only useful when the work I do serves a greater purpose.Laynie PortlandBook 1: Laynie Portland, Spy Rising-The PrequelBook 2: Laynie Portland, Retired SpyBook 3: Laynie Portland, Renegade SpyBook 4: Laynie Portland, Spy ResurrectedBook 5: Vyper, a Laynie Portland Sequel