Name: Archie Parsons. Occupation: Malaria consultant. Hobbies: Mosquito husbandry. Cat fancying. Long walks through West African shanty towns at sunset. That last activity nearly gets Archie killed fresh off a plane in Liberia. Robbed and beaten, he is lucky to get away with bruises, contusions and a stolen passport.Turns out, these weren’t run-of-the-mill thugs. They work for Xtraktiv, a black ops security firm contracted by a consortium of oil companies that aims to steal Archie’s identity and murder him. They seek access to Archie’s professional network, particularly his connections with Health Ministries, to facilitate a killing spree of obstructive politicians and activists in and around the Gulf of Guinea. These executions are to be orchestrated by their top assassin—a man code named Agent Black—who becomes personally involved in the second attempt to take down Archie at Robertsfield Airport. But while tangling with Archie in a terminal washroom, Black is killed in a freak accident involving a slick floor and a hard sink. The consortium naturally assumes that their man prevailed. This is Agent Black, after all. After Black’s remains are efficiently disposed of by local contractors, the consortium blindly shuttles Archie all over West Africa, providing airline tickets, weapons and intelligence via briefcases left in luxury hotel suites. For a time he plays along, exploiting his mistaken identity to warn intended targets of their peril. Once the consortium discovers their error, they dispatch Black’s East African counterpart, a man code named Agent White, to set things straight. Archie finds himself pitted against the most brutal corporate assassin on the African continent. The US State Department won’t help him because he’s officially deceased. And the consortium has infiltrated the diplomatic corps to its highest levels. The only person who dares come to his assistance is his cat-sitter Melissa, a young woman of Caribbean extraction whose shadowy past renders her much more formidable than Archie realizes.