After the terrible attack on the Capitol, the Mayflower Foundation, now under the sole leadership of Janet Fitzsimmons, succeeded in taking over the US government. As for Jason McLane, he has become a puppet controlled electronically by Janet - and is now also her husband, as well as one of the new president's closest advisors. When XIII goes to Cuba in order to covertly spring a Russian hacker from prison, he has no idea his past will once again come back to haunt him ...
Jason McLane - XIII - has just taken a shot at the pope during an
official visit to Washington DC. If he hadn't, two innocent hostages
would have paid the price. Granted, General Wolf's orders were always
to maintain his cover at all costs, but the plans of the Mayflower
conspirators - the same people that XIII was supposed to infiltrate
but now control him through blackmail - are appallingly more complex and dangerous than just this assassination attempt. American
democracy itself is in danger ...
Jason McLane, a.k.a. XIII, seems to have finally accepted his true
destiny. Tired of fighting the powerful elite who control the world,
he has apparently joined them. Of course, he supposedly did so on
orders from General Wolf, so as to bring down the sinister Mayflower
Foundation at last, but ... what if the temptation of power proved too
strong? Janet Fitzsimmons, the Foundation's president, too beautiful? Or the price of integrity too steep for him ... or his friends?
Still with Annika, Jason McLane has the documents his godfather left for him to find in the Netherlands deciphered. Once translated, the text offers revelations of breathtaking importance - enough to change the geopolitical map for ever. But the killers sent by the Mayflower Foundation are still after them, while in Afghanistan, Jones and Carrington's situation goes from bad to worse. XIII will have to be on his best game to sort it all out - but at what price?
Jason has managed to give his captors the slip, but he was forced to leave Betty behind, severely injured. After a short but tense episode dealing with the north-eastern mafia, he's off to the next step in his quest: Leiden, Holland, from where half of the Mayflower expedition left, and where his godfather appears to live. But his enemies haven't given up, and the young local guide he's picked brings her own heap of troubles...
The agents of the organisation that was hunting for XIII have finally captured him, along with his friends, but he's still refusing his captors' job offer. Forced to give in after they commit an appalling act just to coerce him, he's discreetly brought back to the USA, where he finally learns what they're really after. Meanwhile, Betty Barnowsky continues her own investigation under the FBI's very noses. For both of them, the road leads, once again, to Green Falls...
XIII is hiding in France at the Préseaus, after a past more nebulous he even believed possible caught up to him again. But the organisation that's after him hasn't said its last word, and has considerable means at its disposal. It lures Jones, on duty in Afghanistan, into a terrible ambush, for the sole purpose of serving as bait for the amnesiac - who immediately rushes to her rescue. Meanwhile, Betty Barnowsky-Préseau is off to Maine to dig into XIII's past...
The Mongoose is dead. So is Number I. But, since he was the President of the United States, XIII's friends are all on the run again. McLane, though, has been arrested, and he's being judged in secret by the heads of the American intelligence community. Sentenced to life in a secret prison, he has no illusions that he'll ever reach it. The ruthlessness of the NSA Director proves him right-but he's not the only one who wants XIII dead.
Jason McLane is on holidays with Jones at some friends' in Central America, when a peculiar priest offers him startling news: He may very well be a married man! And because nothing is ever simple in XIII's life, his apparent wife is none other than the leader of the democratic guerrillas in neighbouring Costa Verde, Maria De Los Santos-currently awaiting execution in a maximum security fortress. Time for the amnesiac to put his skills to good use again- for Maria.
Captured and imprisoned in the Roca Negra fortress, XIII is being tortured by the sinister Colonel Peralta. But, for all his pain and suffering, he's also in the same building as Maria, the woman who may be his wife. And they have plenty of dedicated, resourceful friends outside... as well as at least one traitor. Still unsure of his past, Jason McLane will have no choice but to become the man known as "El Cascador" to clean up Costa Verde once and for all.
XIII has freed a country, exposed a traitor, reunited with his wife... and found his father. As he deals-somewhat against his will-with the aftermath of the revolution in Costa Verde, Sean Mullway recounts for him his family's history: Irish immigrants, remorseless Mafiosi, Mexican gold, and three silver watches. New answers will also bring new questions and a whole new set of potential enemies just as old ones come back to the fore.
