CIA director Thomas Stansfield is dead - a fact many individuals in and around the nation's capital are pleased to hear. But their happiness proves to be short-lived once they learn that Stansfield's successor is the late director's close friend and protege, Dr. Irene Kennedy. Her plan of action is to pursue the very goals Stansfield established -- something Stansfield's fiercest enemies don't want to hear. And something they refuse to accept. Meanwhile, Israel has discovered that Saddam Hussein is close to entering the nuclear arms race -- and they've vowed to stop the Iraqi madman before he can get his hands on the ultimate weapon. With the Middle East teetering on the preciplce of chaos and devastation, the president of the United States is forced to act. The commander in chief's secret weapon? None other than the CIA's top counterterrorism operative, Mitch Rapp. With action that sizzles and true-to-life insider detail, SEPARATION OF POWER showcases NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author Vince Flynn at his shell-shocking best

When a spike in CIA intelligence suggests a major terrorist attack planned for Memorial Day, the president orders Mitch Rapp, his top counterterrorism operative, to pull out all the stops. Rapp immediately leaves for Afghanistan where he leads the ultra secret counterterrorism Special Forces unit on a daring commando raid across the border into Northern Pakistan. Their target: an al-Qaeda stronghold. Within a subterranean room, Rapp and his team discover a treasure trove of maps, computers, files and bills of lading for multiple freighters heading to US ports - all pointing to plans for a catastrophic attack on Washington DC. Information is quickly relayed back to CIA headquarters, and a nuclear emergency search team scrambles to the scene. In a few hours, the freighters have been located and the danger averted. Or has it? To Mitch Rapp, the whole operation seemed just a bit too easy. Following his instincts on a quest to unearth the whole truth, Rapp makes a truly terrifying discovery - and with Memorial Day closing fast, he must find a way to prevent a disaster of unimaginable proportions

Rapp had traveled to New York City to decide the fate of a man. He had debated the wisdom of handling it himself. In addition to the inherent risk of getting caught, there was another, more pressing, problem. Just six days earlier a series of explosions had torn through Washington D.C., killing 185 and wounding hundreds. Three of the terrorists were still at large, and Rapp had been unofficially ordered to find them by any means necessary. So far, however, the investigation had been painfully complicated and had yet to yield a single solid lead. The three men had up and disappeared, which suggested a level of sophistication that few of them thought the enemy capable of. The last thing Rapp expected, though, was that he would still be dealing with this other issue. In light of the attacks in Washington, he thought the fool would have come to his senses

Before he was considered a CIA superagent, before he was thought of as a terrorist's worst nightmare, and before he was both loathed and admired by the politicians on Capitol Hill, Mitch Rapp was a gifted college athlete without a care in the world . . . and then tragedy struck. Two decades of cutthroat, partisan politics has left the CIA and the country in an increasingly vulnerable position. Cold War veteran and CIA Operations Director Thomas Stansfield knows he must prepare his people for the next war. The rise of Islamic terrorism is coming, and it needs to be met abroad before it reaches America's shores. Stansfield directs his protegee, Irene Kennedy, and his old Cold War colleague, Stan Hurley, to form a new group of clandestine operatives who will work outside the normal chain of command—men who do not exist. What type of man is willing to kill for his country without putting on a uniform? Kennedy finds him in the wake of the Pan Am Lockerbie terrorist attack. Two-hundred and seventy souls perished that cold December night, and thousands of family and friends were left searching for comfort. Mitch Rapp was one of them, but he was not interested in comfort. He wanted retribution. Six months of intense training has prepared him to bring the war to the enemy's doorstep, and he does so with brutal efficiency. Rapp starts in Istanbul, where he assassinates the Turkish arms dealer who sold the explosives used in the Pan Am attack. Rapp then moves onto Hamburg with his team and across Europe, leaving a trail of bodies. All roads lead to Beirut, though, and what Rapp doesn't know is that the enemy is aware of his existence and has prepared a trap. The hunter is about to become the hunted, and Rapp will need every ounce of skill and cunning if he is to survive the war-ravaged city and its various terrorist factions. As action-packed, fast-paced, and brutally realistic as it gets, Flynn's latest page-turner shows readers how it all began. Behind the steely gaze of the nation's ultimate hero is a young man primed to become an American Assassin