UNDERMONEY

To finance a better future, some comrades in arms steal a lot of money.

Under the aegis of Army Gen. Tommy Taylor, a group of soldiers steals more than $2 billion, intended for bribes in Syria, to help advance the career of Nebraska's junior senator, Ben Corn. Naturally, there are some not-very-ordinary people involved: CIA agent Greta Webb is beautiful, worldly, brilliant, sexually omnivorous, practiced in the art of deception, and lethal in several disciplines, while Don Carter, in charge of security, has raised paranoia to an art form. Also present at the heist, though not a member of the group, is Fyodor Volk, head of the Parsifal Group—a Blackwater-like paramilitary organization—and one of Vladimir Putin's favorite minions. Parsifal had contracted to provide backup security for the operation, and Volk quickly figures out what is being stolen and initiates a close relationship with Webb and the money. It turns out that having $2 billion is not the same as spending $2 billion, and a lot of exposition is provided on the various ways of moving large sums into mainstream economies. Finally, the group settles on using a hedge fund, and thus Industrial Strategies and Elias Vicker, Wall Street's most psychopathic billionaire, enter the plot. Vicker spins out of control, Volk crashes the party, it turns out that in the world of really big money everyone knows everyone else, and the convolutions of allegiance and plot are dark and tangled. The narrative is further burdened with analyses of American policy failures in several areas: military action, foreign relations, social initiative, and more. These ostensibly demonstrate what a fresh and clear vision Corn possesses (and most of the others share with him), but sometimes they feel a little extracurricular. Perhaps to compensate the reader for time spent in the desert, the action sequences are especially violent and bloody and the sex scenes, extravagant. Much of the digressive material could have been edited, at the cost of toning down the aggressive didacticism, but if you start with $2 billion, what is excess?

Energetic action, a tricky plot, and political analysis are not always comfortable together.