Jack Carver

Since he's returned home, Jack has fallen on hard times. Without a new boat to replace the destroyed Lady Karma, he's staring down mounting debts and limited prospects ­ usually through the bottom of aa glass. It doesn't help that when he closes his eyes, Jack can still smell blood on the humid Jacutan air, and feel the adrenaline pumping through his veins. He'll tell anyone that all he wants is his old life back. But who is he really kidding?

David Doyle

After the Jacutan debacle, even the agency's golden boy had to face bench time. Given Doyle's history with Val Cortez, it's hardly surprising that she was moved back to Middle Eastern black-ops while he was shuffled to a desk job. But when a minor Southeast Asian insurgency flares into a full-blown strategic crisis, Doyle is the obvious choice to go in and eliminate the threat.

Kade

Kade never knew her father; only that he was European and thought nothing of casting her mother aside like trash. She took the lesson to heart. Over the years, she's applied her sensuality, keen intellect, and occasionally a blade between the ribs to ascend through the world of smugglers and pirate clans ­ and out of the squalor of her birth home.

Semeru

Whether it was psychotic delusion or simple arrogance that inspired him to take as his name the birthplace of the gods, Semeru has built a potent mythology for himself. His origins are secret, but he and his elite warriors share a common background of ascetic militarism, mystical experience, and the brutal crucible of ceaseless warfare. This is the foundation on which he formed a misfit army of zealots from around the world.