Scott Cook

In the frozen dead-end of Nome, Alaska, Jonathan Hunt just wanted to be left alone. Two years ago, he was a CIA "architect of collapse" who broke nations for a living; now, he’s a scarred giant dredging gold in the Bering Sea, keeping a promise to a woman named Rosa: no more violence.

The gunshots sounded like fireworks, but the bodies in the Louisiana river mud were all too real. When a festive bonfire on the St.James Parish levee turns into a massacre, the world sees a tragedy. Jonathan Hunt sees a signature.

They call it "Antioquia"—the lost fortune of the Medellin Cartel, buried deep in the Texas dirt. A billion dollars in emeralds and cash that was supposed to stay lost forever. Jonathan Hunt moved to the High Lonesome ranch of West Texas to let his ghosts rest.

They saw a quiet grape farmer in the Missouri Ozarks. They didn’t see the retired CIA assassin who was just waiting for a reason to let the monster out.