In his final hours in the Oval Office the outgoing President grants a full pardon to Joel Backman a notorious Washington power broker who has spent the last six years hidden away in a federal prison Its a controversial move but what no one else knows is that the presidential pardon ocomes as a result of enormous pressure from the CIA They claim that Backman may have obtained secrets that compromise the worlds most sophisticated satellite surveillance system Backman is quietly smuggled out of the country in a military cargo plane he is given a new name a new identity and a new home in Italy Eventually once he has settled into his new life the CIA will leak his whereabouts to the Israelis the Russians the Chinese and the Saudis Then the CIA will do what it does best sit back and watch The question is not whether Backman will survive theres no chance of that The question the CIA needs answered is who will kill him