CATEGORY

The True Story of Two Master Criminals Aiming to Take America's Biggest Prize and Our Security Agencies' Systematic Inability to Stop Them by the Former Intelligence Agent Recruited to Foil Their Plan

Robert Sensi has worked for the CIA, the Republican National Committee, and, as cover, for Kuwait Airways and the Kuwaiti royal family. He has twice served time in federal prison for embezzlement and fraud. Richard Hirschfeld, originally recruited to the CIA by Sensi, boasts an equally illustrious past: in the seventies he duped investors out of millions of dollars, later allegedly stole a $12-million payoff from Ferdinand Marcos intended for Ronald Reagan, and came within a hairbreadth of conning the U.S. Senate out of $50 million.

When the Department of Homeland Security suspects that Sensi and Hirschfeld are at the center of an investigation involving money laundering and the funding of Al Qaeda-and when their supposedly comprehensive database turns up little to no information on either man-it takes onetime spy Larry Kolb to crack the case, ultimately orchestrating Hirschfeld's spectacular capture. But when Kolb begins to connect the dots, he realizes something even more sinister is afoot, and that he's on to the biggest possible con with the highest political stakes.