CIA Director Kristen Thomas is sworn to protect her country. She just didn’t count on the enemy being within. The President, has been elected through an unprecedented, compromised campaign of fake news, deep fakes and the unfettered corruption of social media. All funded by her country’s sworn enemies.
And her agency is leaking.
For months her most trusted former operative has been building a new life in Australia. Kristen Thomas needs Alex Ward.
As Ward is unleashed to uncover the corruption of their President, the trail leads to a puppet master with a far more devastating agenda.
Hanse Kallis believes the world is killing itself. In his lifetime the global population has tripled to 8 billion. The mass of humanity is suffocating, stripping and killing the planet. It needs an Intervention.

Hanse Kallis is motivated. He has the means. And the pandemic has provided the way.
While the magnitude of Kallis’ plan is revealed, Ward is on the hunt from sun drenched Australia, to the stunning landscape of South Africa and the confronting cold of Russia.
It’s a desperate race against time. And she’s not sure they’ll make it!
CIA Director Kristen Thomas is sworn to protect her country. She just didn’t count on the enemy being within. The President, has been elected through an unprecedented, compromised campaign of fake news, deep fakes and the unfettered corruption of social media. All funded by her country’s sworn enemies.
And her agency is leaking.
For months her most trusted former operative has been building a new life in Australia. Kristen Thomas needs Alex Ward.
As Ward is unleashed to uncover the corruption of their President, the trail leads to a puppet master with a far more devastating agenda.
Hanse Kallis believes the world is killing itself. In his lifetime the global population has tripled to 8 billion. The mass of humanity is suffocating, stripping and killing the planet. It needs an Intervention.

Hanse Kallis is motivated. He has the means. And the pandemic has provided the way.
While the magnitude of Kallis’ plan is revealed, Ward is on the hunt from sun drenched Australia, to the stunning landscape of South Africa and the confronting cold of Russia.
It’s a desperate race against time. And she’s not sure they’ll make it!
Prologue
NOVEMBER 15TH, 2022Â is a bellwether day in the history of our planet. Â
It is the day recognised and consequently 'named' by the United Nations as the 'Day of Eight Billion.'Â
While we could argue as to whether the UN really applied itself in the naming of this significant milestone, it is nonetheless a day we need to acknowledge, to reflect on and to consider the future-shaping implications. It is the day (the clue is in the name!) the United Nations acknowledged the world population reached eight billion people.
In 1950 - very recent history - and living memory for many - there were an estimated two and a half billion people on the planet. As of today we are well in excess of eight billion. In just seventy-two years, a single lifetime for our parents or grandparents, the population has exploded by a multiple of three. And while the rate of population growth is slowing, we are nonetheless, still growing. Nine billion is on the horizon. Ten billion is expected by 2050.
Population growth can be pretty popular. I live in Australia. We have political parties that have actively campaigned on policies that drive higher migration and encourage - often incentivise - natural population growth. Economists and politicians almost universally promote a growing population. They lay out an evident association with economic growth. More people. More spending. More development.Â
More. More. More.Â
And isn't economic growth the most fundamental objective of our governments and our broader socio-economic collective? It is generally proposed as the single measure of the prosperity of a country and the capability and performance of the government in charge.
Population growth may be great for the economy. But it is terrible for the environment. The linkages between population growth and environmental destruction are without question. And they are linear. More people, more devastation.
Let me preface this by saying that I am no eco-warrior! I struggle to understand what can be recycled and which of the four rubbish bins our council provides, I should be using. I definitely should do more! Nonetheless, it seems there is little attention or discussion addressing the obvious - the relationship between population - the sheer mass of humanity -Â and the ongoing and possibly irreversible destruction of our planet.
We have well-documented environmental degradation. Pollution in the air, on our land and in our seas. Holes in the ozone, manmade landfill mountains and oceans clogged with plastic. Air in many countries is barely safe to breathe and water, in places, is no longer safe to drink. Resources are being stripped from the planet to fuel productivity and lifestyle. And it is all a consequence of people.
The World Wildlife Fund reported in 2022 that between 1970 and 2018, global wildlife populations fell by sixty nine percent. That’s two-thirds of the world's wildlife wiped out in less than fifty years! And the place is heating up. Because of the way we live. And if we cross the much-publicised 1.5°C threshold we risk even greater environmental and ecological impact including rising ocean levels, more frequent and severe droughts, heatwaves and rainfall.
The Kyoto Protocol adopted in 1997 was the first attempt to focus the world's attention. The intent was to get developed countries to reduce emissions to pre-1990 levels and to keep them trending down. It failed. The US signed on in 1998 and would later withdraw its signature. The Paris Agreement followed in 2015 - a renewed and historic commitment by signatory countries to set emission reduction targets. Lots of commitments and action plans. However, a Stanford University report published in December indicated that in 2023 we had reached record global emissions.Â
The weight of informed opinion - by some measure, is that if we continue unchecked, the future for the planet and for the people that live on it - is dire.
Chapter 1
ALEX WARD STEPPED up her pace. She wanted to push hard for the last half mile of her six-mile run. Actually, she corrected herself, it was the last kilometre of ten - her adopted country had been metric for decades!Â
This part of the coast was stunning. The return into Avalon - a beautiful town on the northern beaches of Sydney, made her feel blessed to call this place home. She'd just descended the rocky headland that jutted out to the Pacific Ocean, following a rarely used trail that took her right across the top and then dropped down a rock and grass slope towards the village. It was a precarious descent. Particularly at speed. The gradient of the slope and the loose soil and rocks meant she had to keep her head down and each foot strike put pressure on her knees and her quads.Â
But she loved to run and to suffer. This slippery slope was often about as exciting as her day would get.
Now and then she would take her eyes off the trail, look up and take in the breathtaking expanse of the Pacific Ocean in front of her and in her peripheral the beautiful homes that graced the coastline. Subconsciously she appreciated the skill of the architect as the houses seemed to perch untethered over the beach below.Â
She slowed her pace a little as she bottomed out from the descent and came closer to the coastline of Avalon. This was home, along with her Australian husband. Just the two of them. Alex shut down her podcast and removed her air buds, zipping them into her bum bag - a rather amusing Aussie term - as she ran along the foreshore. She tuned into the cadence of her feet hitting the ground, aware of waves breaking over the rocks, exploding into the air creating a salty mist that softly cooled her skin.
Paradise found.
Several days a week Alex would run with the local triathlon group. The camaraderie and the challenge of fit and competitive athletes pushed her a little harder. But running alone was her therapy. Where she recalibrated. Her mind turned inward as her body found its groove. An opportunity to reflect on her day, to cherish what she had and to consider the days ahead. Relaxed and at peace.Â
Though even when relaxed her eyes behind the reflective lens of her Oakleigh sunglasses constantly scanned.Â
She missed nothing.
She had fallen in love with this place as soon as they’d arrived. This part of Australia was truly beautiful and less than an hour's commute to Sydney for those days when she had to work in town. Avalon was where her husband had spent his childhood and they had settled here a little over a year ago.Â
With the sun a fiery orange ball low in the sky Alex turned away from the coast and headed up the hill towards her house. It was a place they'd bought sight unseen while they were still living in the States. A leap of faith they had both committed to in relocating to Australia. A demonstration of their desire for permanency and stability. Perhaps more in hope than with a clear plan. But it had worked out brilliantly. She was so pleased they had trusted their collective intuition and backed what was for both of them a snap decision. She and David were both thriving.Â
The elevated location of their home caught the breeze and offered beautiful views over the ocean.Â
And it appealed to her innate need to find the higher ground.
Chapter 2
THE SCREEN DOOR slammed.
David Mitchell called out, ‘Up here.'
Ward kicked off her running shoes and socks and stepped lightly in her bare feet up the stairs and into the kitchen. The run and the coastal humidity had her glistening with sweat. Turning from the cooktop David looked at his wife across the counter. She even seemed to sweat elegantly. He noticed - as he did as often as possible, how good she looked in her short shorts and cropped running top. Her dark, almost black hair was pulled back in a single ponytail, accentuating her sharp cheekbones and strong jawline. Â
She had always been fit and driven but the move to Australia and particularly to the coast had her catching the triathlon bug and she'd leaned down even more. Her tanned skin and the definition in her arms and legs gave her a long and athletic form. It suited her. This place was having a wonderful effect. On Alex and on him. He tried to capture and hold these simple moments in his mind.
Ward caught the look of her husband. He turned back towards the kitchen conscious of his attention being noticed. He was not one for overt displays, tending to favour what she had come to realise was quintessential Aussie understatement. Deflection was second nature. She found it cute. She moved around the bench top and into the kitchen, giving David a kiss and grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge.
She asked, ‘When are you going to come running with me?'
'When I can keep up.'
'I'm going to grab a shower.'
'Want company?' he paused briefly as he quickly looked her over, 'I can soap your back,' he offered, 'Or your front, if you prefer?'Â
'Haha! We don't want to spoil that lovely dinner you're working on. Give me ten and we can have a beer on the deck.' She smiled as she teased her husband and walked out of the room.
'It's a date,’ he called after her.
The complexity of the narrative regarding numerous concurrent simultaneous events that pose a threat to surviveability through the immediacy and severe magnitude is both provocative fiction and significant brain food for thought.
However, there are some stylistic aspects that detract from this novel and could be edited to greatly improve the readability prior to publication.
The low-brow dialogue and excessive use of profanity doesn’t seem appropriate for high level government officials or reflective of the Oval office or covert intelligence agencies despite the nefarious nature of their intent. However, by chapter 29, it reads like a different voice, a highly descriptive one with tight sentence structure building in intrigue. There is structural inconsistency in the paragraphs with some only a few sentences, and most of them could be fleshed out as they are too short that read more like fragments.
There is strong character development with Alex Ward from her initial recruitment to the CIA and her’ seemingly endless list of coveted attributes as a new recruit almost seem deity-like while remarking on her dangerous disregard for her own safety’ which foreshadow the events which follow.
The topics of outdated mandates, speed of tech, global logistics systems, climate change, and dangers of fake news, disinformation, and exponential AI are all well supported, current, and timely as they are interwoven into the suspenseful hurricane of potential disasters. The narrative has merit in its provocative and cautionary intertwining of these topics into unimaginable consequences. From that which is widely known through mainstream media outlets to the lesser discussed future of molecular robots, nano-robotics, electromagnetic protocols as well as the interworkings of global geopolitical mazes and national security, this book stands to challenge the brightest minds in addressing these emerging threats.
With some rigorous editing and improved dialogue, this book has the potential to be five-stars.