Change of Heart

About the Book

Colonel Mironov was a high level officer of the KGB when the Soviet Union was at the height of power.  Now that he’s out of a job, all he wants is to return his beloved Communist Party to power in Moscow.  He is a major player within the Party but how does he get the job done?  Get the Americans to do it for him.

The plan is simple but brutally effective: Discredit the current Democratic system to create a power vacuum and allow the Communist Party leader to step in to mop up the mess.  It can all work, and Mironov himself holds the key, Valeria Konstantinova, a former operative under his control.  The knowledge she holds of the men in power could bring the Kremlin to its knees.  Her mere presence on the floor of Parliament would be devastating to the Russian President, but for one problem.  Those same men have locked up Valeria and her secrets in a high-security prison in the middle of the eastern Russian frontier.

To get her out, Mironov turns to the American Intelligence community.  In exchange for all he can tell about the Communist Party interior, he asks for the release of Valeria, his closest comrade.  She is busted out of prison by the CIA, but her safe return to the United States falls to the hands of one man, Joshua McGowan.

Josh is a former Special Forces soldier and now an agent for a narrow branch of Navy Intelligence run by Rear Admiral Katherine Filmore.  His attitude nearly got him kicked out of the Navy.  His methods on covert missions left a swath of dead bodies cut through the forces of his enemies.

To get Valeria out of Russia, Josh must fly from Baltimore to a carrier waiting in the Pacific aboard a fuel-heavy Navy F-14, hopscotching halfway around the world from military airbases to carriers at sea.  The journey itself nearly costs Josh his life and when he finally arrives in Russian waters north of Japan he finds a derelict stolen sailboat.  Aboard the sailboat is a dead CIA agent, a man who was Josh’s friend, and a beautiful young woman.  When he sees Valeria for the first time, Josh can’t believe that this innocent looking child could have been a KGB tool for manipulating high ranking officials in the Kremlin.

Mironov’s people are also looking for her.  Josh finds himself stranded in the middle of the Sea of Othosk in a liferaft with Valeria when a Communist warship destroys the sailboat.  Josh and Valeria are rescued by a Japanese fisherman, then must elude the Japanese Federal Police until they can get safely to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo.

Valeria, however, has other plans.  Now that she is free of the Russian prison, the last thing she wants is to be interrogated by the Americans.  Josh has started to fall in love with her, despite his contempt for her arrogance.  Valeria uses his feelings for her to betray him.  As they are attempting to evade the Japanese police in northern Japan, she knocks him unconcious and flees, leaving Josh in the hands of the police.  She arranges a meeting with her lover, the brother of the head of one of the most powerful mafia families in Moscow.  Josh manages to track her down to a park in Tokyo, only to have her taken from his hands by Mironov’s men.  Josh must then turn to her lover for the information he needs.

Before he can do that, he must make a side trip into the Syrian desert of western Iraq.  The Communists have sold a shipment of Dr. Jones’ plastic explosives to an Iraqi terrorist group, and the explosives are stockpiled in a training camp.  The Israelis want it eliminated before it can be used against them.  Josh and his assault team, together with Israeli Mossad agents, raid the camp to take out the explosives, but not without the cost of a good friend’s life.  Part of the shipment, however, is missing, and is assumed to have been taken by Ismail Rafjani, a Pakistani terrorist long sought by the Mossad.

Josh is then off to Moscow, where he arranges to meet with Valeria’s lover.  Josh i

About the Author

Jack Allen lives in Michigan with his puppy, Peanut. He has completed three books in the Josh McGowan series, a fourth book set in World War II, and is currently working on the fourth Josh McGowan book, when he’s not racing around the city in his red sportscar at breakneck speeds.