Shane Alexander
A soldier's posture in a civilian T-shirt. Lives in his late grandfather's antique house and keeps a packed go-bag behind a false panel in the hall closet. Checks his rifle three times for luck.
Dossier · Personnel files
The Characters
Hunters, ghosts, and the people left behind.
Jason Conrad
Calm, stubborn, and precise. Taken at 23, back at 33, thinner and older than his service photo. He argued against every target and still made the bomb work.
Joey Bennett
Worn but sharp. Prefers watching to kicking doors, and runs the plateau op with a seven-minute clock in his head.
Shawn Mitchell
Methodical. Ten years late is better than never. He rides in the grab team to see what happens with both eyes open.
Avery Jackson
Composed and exact. Finds the footpath at Delta-39 and later sits across the table from Saidi.
Sarah Conrad
Got the knock on the door once already. Remarried, two kids, a folded flag on the shelf. Now she has to live in the world where he isn't dead.
Khalil
Leather jacket, eyes that miss nothing. "Weather is an excuse. Time is a fact."
Amar Saidi
Charismatic and patient. Wants the spectacle more than he fears the response. Trusts nothing about Conrad except his fear.
The Broker
Built back channels for the West in the Gulf, then rented them to whoever paid. "You sold us the rope." "I rent the rope."
Shannon Stahl
Wants the stupid high-school stories and the messed-up holidays, the parts of Shane that aren't in a file.
Lee Curry
Ex-Army, keeper of the whiteboard. Tasked by the Director to find out what Conrad did, and what the government did that made it possible.
The Jackal
A silhouette in a chair at the end of every route. There are always other ghosts.
See where these people collide: Astana, the Kuwaiti desert, and a plateau farm in Algeria.