Special Agent Mark Beamon is a maverick. His open disdain for the FBI's rules - and Directors - has exiled him to a no-profile post in the boondocks. But when a shadowy right-wing group starts flooding America's emergency rooms with dead and dying, Beamon is summoned back to Washington. Teamed with an icily efficient female field agent, he is given the thankless task of stopping the slaughter-even though millions of Americans secretly approve of it. As the body count rises, Beamon realizes there is something eerily familiar about his adversary, reminding him of the coldest killer he ever encountered - not a criminal but a law enforcement colleague. And for the first time, he wonders why he was chosen for this assignment. Was it his expertise - or his expendability?

Punished for his maverick ways, FBI agent Mark Beamon has been exiled from Washington, D.C., to a sleepy Southwest office where he's got one last chance to play by the rules. But that's not going to happen, not when he's on a case that may be too hot even for his unorthodox talents to handle. A local millionaire and his wife are brutally murdered. Jennifer, their teenage child and sole heir, is the prime suspect - and she's gone missing. Laying everything on the line, Beamon sets off on a trail that takes him from a remote survivalist's cabin in the Utah mountains, through the labyrinthine headquarters of a cultlike church, into the shadowy, interlocking boardrooms of a powerful high-tech communications empire. Just when he thinks he's close to finding answers, Beamon discovers the killing of Jennifer's parents is far more sinister than even he could have guessed. Now he isn't just looking for a young girl - he's got to stop a bizarre conspiracy that could bring America to its knees ...

A top-secret FBI file - buried in an anonymous government warehouse since J Edgar Hoover's death - is missing. The unlucky student who uncovered it is dead, and now his ex-girlfriend is on the run, accused of murder. The only man everyone agrees can find her and turn up the explosive document is 'off-duty', suspended and under the threat of prosecution by the bureau itself. Mark Beamon knows better than anyone that this is his last shot to save his career - and his country. Tracking the young woman down, though, will be the hardest assignment he's ever tackled, for she's a world-class rock-climber who can drop out of sight anywhere in the globe. And even if he finds her and the file, who can he trust when the FBI itself is under suspicion? Beamon has no room for wrong guesses or moves, if he is to avoid free falling out of the bureau and straight into prison - or worse.

Hailed by Tom Clancy as a novelist who is fast becoming "the new master of gripping and intelligent page-turners," Kyle Mills is at the forefront of America's hot new thriller writers. His New York Times bestsellers Storming Heaven and Burn Factor showed Mills to be a storyteller of breathless pacing, stylish prose, and chilling effectiveness. In Sphere of Influence, he takes FBI agent Mark Beamon into unnervingly hazardous territory, with shattering results. After years of putting truth ahead of protocol, Mark Beamon is languishing in a dead-end job in the Bureau's Phoenix office. But before he can officially be put out to pasture, he's called in for one final assignment.It was supposed to have been fun—a quick undercover job that would temporarily free Beamon from managerial hell. But now his young partner is dead and the FBI is strangely reluctant to ask the questions that could bring his killers to justice. Determined to find the truth even if it destroys him, Beamon plunges headlong into a world of drug trafficking, government corruption, murder, and betrayal. As he penetrates deeper he finds himself tumbling further and further into the undercover persona created for him—that of a cold blooded mercenary known only as Nicolai. Too deep, perhaps, to ever return. When Beamon discovers the existence of the mysterious Christian Volkov—a master criminal and a man with seemingly limitless power—it quickly becomes clear that only through him will Beamon be able to avenge his friend's death and unravel the conspiracy threatening his country. Trapped where the line between international organized crime and world politics blurs hopelessly, Beamon discovers that the stakes are much higher than he ever imagined. And that the enemy is much closer than he thinks.

Erin Neal has been living a secluded life in the Arizona desert since the death of his girlfriend and he isn’t happy when an oil company executive comes calling. A number of important Saudi wells have stopped producing and Erin is the world’s foremost expert in resolving just these kinds of complications. As far as he’s concerned, though, he’s left that world behind. Not his problem. Homeland Security sees things differently. Erin quickly finds himself stuck in the Saudi desert, studying a new bacteria with a voracious appetite for oil and an uncanny talent for destroying drilling equipment. But worst of all is its ability to spread. It soon becomes clear that if this contagion isn’t stopped, it will infiltrate the world’s petroleum reserves, cutting the industrial world off from the energy that provides the heat, food, and transportation necessary for survival. Erin realizes that there’s something eerily familiar about this bacteria. And that it couldn’t possibly have evolved on its own.