Decency

The NSA does not want you to read this book - it rips the cover from their use of abusive psychological evaluations.In this legal/espionage thriller, set in the heart of the United States intelligence community, a mole at the National Security Agency provides high-end American military technology to China. He covers his treason with a legal loophole which allows the intelligence community to label persons under their control as psychologically unfit, with no legal recourse.Samantha Pierce, a brilliant young computer scientist is killed when she discovers his treachery. Apparently, all evidence of murder is destroyed. With no clues left, authorities declare her death to be from nothing more than natural causes. However, her grieving parents, Nebraska farmers Harlan and Kathy Pierce, know their daughter was healthy and suspect something amiss. After a frustrating series of rejections, they hire bulldog Washington lawyer Kelly Hawkins with almost no time left to get into court.Kelly, who is herself a victim of random violence, discovers through hard work and determination that Samantha left enough information to file a case. But when she does, NSA explains it all away. The case appears hopeless, and even Kelly’s own firm abandons it. Yet the lawyer is dogged and executes a brilliant maneuver, filing and arguing an exotic motion to expose the whole sordid scheme, up to and including the identity of the mole.As the case explodes, the government realizes the extent of its own complicity, and must deal with all of the guilty parties who attempt to tie up their loose ends in the most violent and chaotic ways. The Chinese get word of the legal proceeding from the mole and dispatch their own agents to thwart the American effort. All at once, the government must engage in a risky venture to recover the technology, capture the mole, and protect the Pierces – with no time on the clock.A thriller in the tradition of Tom Clancy and John Grisham, Decency blends intimate knowledge of the law of American military and intelligence operations with a plot that keeps the reader’s eyes riveted to the page. It features an exposition on a little known feature of the NSA, and the intelligence community as a whole, that uses psychology guidelines as legal cover for a brutally enforced hierarchy.Through the machinations of mole and lawyer, computer scientists and intelligence specialists, Decency reveals the worldview that even in the midst of covert security operations, civility to others is key to the proper functioning of the world. Without trust, no real peace can ever be achieved. Decency draws on real world news headlines of secret Chinese spying on United States military technology to make it relevant and robust.Chilling and spine-tingling, Decency reveals how law and psychology conspire at the highest levels of national security intelligence to keep its members in lock-step order.