In his final hours in the Oval Office the outgoing Leader grants a full pardon to Joel Backman, a notorious Washington power broker that has spent the last six years hidden away inside a federal government prison. It’s a controversial move, but what no one else knows is that the presidential pardon comes as a result of enormous pressure from your CIA. They claim that Backman may have developed secrets that would compromise the world’s most sophisticated satellite surveillance system.

Backman is quietly smuggled out of the country within a army cargo plane; he is given a new name, a new identity, and a new house in Italy. Ultimately, once he offers resolved into his new lease of life, the CIA will drip his whereabouts to the Israelis, the Russians, the Chinese language as well as the Saudis. Then your CIA will do what it can best: relax and watch. The question is not whether Backman will survive – there’s no potential for that. The issue the CIA needs answered is: who will kill him?