At the turn of the 21st century, three United States Navy nuclear submarines vanished, and only two were recovered by Naval Intelligence. The third, a massive Ohio-class sub, finally turned up in Barranquilla, Colombia, stashed inside a grotto in the Magdalena River. It appeared that some Navy admirals, possibly with Russian collusion, planned to sell the subs to cartels, facilitating the movement of tons of illegal drugs. CI5 agent Pat Coonan (also known as Agent Delta) is given orders to \u201cdiscreetly eliminate\u201d the traitors. His boss, Col. Marlon Berkowitz, presents the job as simple: Dispense with the treasonous Admiral Fullerton, as well as the Russian mercenaries guarding the sub. But Pat\u2019s old nemesis is involved, the guards might be undercover agents of the Russian intelligence agency GRU, and even Putin himself may be embroiled. Pat\u2019s further distracted by his new partner; Karina Reyes, head of the Triple K group, is contracted to send a message of deterrence by blowing up the sub, but Pat can\u2019t keep his eyes off of her legs. Once onboard, a shocking discovery is made\u2014the sub is loaded with ICBMs. Ortiz\u2019s book works best in the context of its series; events from other installments are alluded to but not explained, such as a \u201cwaggish incident between the blonde-haired Jessica and the Triple K group\u2019s gay operator back in Aruba.\u201d (Asterisks also repeatedly direct readers to Ortiz\u2019 different works.) This story doesn\u2019t have a high quotient of suspense or action as Pat encounters surprisingly few obstacles. Ruthless killer Nina Tetriak merely hands him a note, and only a U.S. government agent points a gun at Pat\u2014in error. Pat\u2019s narrative musings are the main focus, so readers\u2019 engagement with his persona (jaded, computer-illiterate, \u201cphallocratic\u201d) will likely determine their overall enjoyment. Ortiz does provide intriguing information on many subjects, including the \u201cone hundred and seventy meters long by thirteen meters wide\u201d Ohio-class submarines, pencil detonators \u201ccolor-coded to indicate their delay time,\u201d and even algae (\u201cmore than thirty thousand known species\u201d).<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At the turn of the 21st century, three United States Navy nuclear submarines vanished, and only two were recovered by Naval Intelligence. The third, a massive Ohio-class sub, finally turned up in Barranquilla, Colombia, stashed inside a grotto in the Magdalena River. It appeared that some Navy admirals, possibly with Russian collusion, planned to sell […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2332"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}