Title: Formal Denial - David Morrell - book
Summary :
"Formal denial" is the diplomatic formula used when a state has killed, caused someone to kill, or allowed someone to kill. And so much the worse for those who are disavowed in the name of a good cause, naturally, and with a view to higher interests. Steve Docker has seen dozens of stories like this in the American counterterrorism services. But the day he is held responsible for an operation that ended in carnage in Rome, because the real culprit is protected in high places, he prefers to resign. Retired to Santa Fe, Steve soon meets Beth, with whom he hopes to find what he has never known: peace, simple family happiness. But then mysterious attackers appear - among whom he seems to recognize a protagonist in the Roman affair - and Beth disappears... This time, Decker reacts like a wounded lion. He sets out to find, at all costs, the truth and his love. A breathless hunt, led without fail by the novelist of The Conspirators of the Flame and In Extremis.