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Steve Gladis is a former Marine officer and FBI Agent with major case experience in Cleveland, Detroit, and Washington, D.C. He taught senior police officers and agents at the FBI Academy, edited the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, and served as chief speechwriter for the FBI Director. He now teaches leadership at George Mason University. The author of numerous books on leadership, Dr. Gladis works with businesses, associations, and U.S. government agencies, and speaks regularly at conferences. For decades, he and his family have been summer vacationers at Rehoboth Beach, the setting of his first novel, THE MANIPULATION PROJECT.

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Chapter 1: August 2—Rehoboth Beach, Delaware

The surf stroked Rehoboth Beach like a mother softly combing her young daughter’s hair. The Atlantic was particularly maternal on this hot July morning, taunted by seagulls that swept down on the remains of the previous day’s reverie. As the sun cracked through the horizon, the green, scarred garbage tractor scraped and devoured cans, bottles and paper as it belched back pure white sugar sand in its wake. The tractor’s throaty engine was Chris Gordon’s wake-up call every morning at sunrise.

As he lay next to Diane, whose restful breathing matched the surf’s rhythm, he watched her and thought about what her stability had meant to him over their twenty-five years of marriage. For Diane, it hadn’t been easy knowing Chris had a mistress. For Chris, it hardly seemed possible—being married to Diane and having an affair with the FBI for more than a quarter century.

But today, the affair with the FBI was over—even more unbelievable than the length of the relationship. His new title: Former FBI Agent Chris Gordon, at least that’s what his subscription of the Society of Former FBI Agents magazine, The Grapevine, said. He got his first issue almost three months to the day after his going away party. At fifty, Chris still had seven years before mandatory retirement with the Bureau. Besides Diane and his kids, the Bureau was all Chris cared about. But as he lay there between wake and sleep, he had a sudden flashback.

That day, two months after his fiftieth birthday, Chris drove into the 7- Eleven parking lot to get his coffee on the way to work. He was near the back of the store adding sugar and cream to his large coffee when he heard loud talking and instinctively looked in the concave mirror used to watch for shoplifters. He saw a thin man with a Yankee’s baseball cap pulled down low, holding a pistol aimed at the clerk, who had her hands up and looked terrified. Next to the counter, there was a customer lying face down as the young robber told the clerk to give him all the money she had. Unfortunately, the Vietnamese clerk had less than twenty dollars in her register, which agitated the robber.

“Give me all your fuckin’ money, or I’ll blow your head off!”

With a look of terror and confusion on her face, the slight, middle-aged Asian woman pointed frantically to the security sign next to the register that read, “Our registers never have more than $20 in them at any time, as a matter of policy.”

“Fuck your sign. Give me some money, you piece of shit, or I’ll kill you right now.”

By now, Chris had pulled his 9mm out of his holster and was moving toward the front of the store. He tried to carefully time his entry into the scene, but based on the elevated rhetoric, he moved with greater speed when the frustrated robber raised his pistol higher as if he were taking aim. Chris had no choice now. As he approached from the left side of the robber to stay out of view of the surveillance mirror, he yelled, “FBI, drop the weapon, now!”

The startled robber turned and began shooting in Chris’ direction. Instinctively, Chris ducked and returned fire. Hit twice in the chest, as he wildly pulled off two more rounds at Chris, the robber sank like a rag doll and went down in front of the counter, next to the customer who had covered her head with her arms.

Chris was trembling when he approached the young man sprawled out in a pool of blood by the counter. Chris kicked his gun away as he turned him over to check his pulse. By now, there was none, and the kid’s hat had fallen off, exposing his face. Chris looked down in shock at Todd Stephens—one of his son’s childhood friends.

Chris Gordon never carried a weapon again.

Suddenly his digital clock alarm began to beep. He hit the alarm button quickly, trying not to wake Diane and saw that it was precisely 6:45 a.m. In fifteen minutes, he was meeting Vic Thompson on the boardwalk in front of One Virginia Avenue, the condo complex where he had rented for years and was now an owner. He rolled off the edge of the bed in a semi-commando roll that he had learned in SWAT training at the FBI Academy years ago, landing on his right knee, never even rippling Diane’s slumber.