Standalone Volume

The Vienna Directive: A Novel Of Betrayal And Espionage

By J.R. Walton

Quick Summary

Elena Voss has spent fifteen years as a CIA case officer working under diplomatic cover in Vienna, running one of the last active networks left over from the Cold War's long shadow. When her most valuable asset - a mid-level Russian intelligence officer named Dmitri Orlov - goes …

Elena Voss has spent fifteen years as a CIA case officer working under diplomatic cover in Vienna, running one of the last active networks left over from the Cold War's long shadow. When her most valuable asset - a mid-level Russian intelligence officer named Dmitri Orlov - goes dark days before a scheduled handoff, Elena is pulled into a scramble to determine whether he's been compromised, turned, or killed.

The trail leads her to a classified NATO communications protocol, codenamed the Vienna Directive, which was supposed to remain buried for another decade. As Elena digs, she discovers the Directive isn't a defense mechanism - it's a kill switch, built by her own agency to sacrifice deep-cover assets when a mission's political cost outweighs a human life. Orlov wasn't burned by the Russians. He was burned by Langley.

Elena has ninety-six hours to extract Orlov before the Directive activates a second time, this time to erase her.