Betrayed

Betrayed is a spy fiction thriller centering on a conspiracy by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp to distribute heroin and cocaine into the United States. The IRGC's purpose is to corrupt the West and provide financing for the Iranian hegemony.

As the plot unfolds, an Iranian defector sends a computer disk detailing the activities of the IRGC to a U.S. Federal Court Judge. When the defector is discovered, the IRGC attempts to retrieve the disk. In the course of retrieval the Judge is murdered by a cleaning staff employee who is herself a Shia immigrant from Columbia. Grabbing the Judge's calendar, she proceeds to a safe house and is deprogrammed. The IRGC concludes the Judge transferred the disk to attorney Jake Mandel, who was his best friend. Mandel is a successful and cynical trial lawyer in Orange County, California.

Against this backdrop, eighteen year old Wally Ovasi, a perfect tool, falls into the hands of the IRGC. His father is a physician, born in Iran of Shiite parents. Coming to America he changes his ethnic identity and passes as an Italian Catholic from Sardinia. He believes that to be an American means to be Christian and western European. He lives and believes in the American dream. Wally discovers his father's Certificate of Naturalization. He questions his own identity and is angered that his father abandoned his Muslim origins and poses as a Christian. Determined to return to his roots, Wally joins a mosque and falls into the manipulative hands of the IRGC. He is molded into a resolute terrorist, committed to the destruction of the United States for perceived wrongs against the Iranian people.

While participating in the bombing of Jake Mandel's office he is apprehended. He discharges his attorney, but does not deny the facts of his conduct. His defense is that he is a Muslim soldier defending the national interest of Iran and therefore cannot be guilty of any crime.

Woven into the plot is the story of Jake Mandel, a lonely and skeptical trial lawyer whose life perspective and role as an unwitting participant in the events allows the reader a direct observation window.