The Profession
The “master storyteller” (Publishers Weekly) and bestselling author of Gates of Fire, The Afghan Campaign, and Killing Rommel returns with a stunning, chillingly plausible near-future thriller about the rise of a privately financed and global military industrial complex.
The year is 2032. The third Iran-Iraq war is over; the 11/11 dirty bomb
attack on the port of Long Beach, California is receding into memory;
Saudi Arabia has recently quelled a coup; Russians and Turks are
clashing in the Caspian Basin; Iranian armored units, supported by the
satellite and drone power of their Chinese allies, have emerged from
their enclaves in Tehran and are sweeping south attempting to recapture
the resource rich territory that had been stolen from them, in their
view, by Lukoil, BP, and ExxonMobil and their privately-funded armies. Everywhere military force is for hire. Oil companies, multi-national
corporations and banks employ powerful, cutting-edge mercenary armies to control global chaos and protect their riches. Even nation states
enlist mercenary forces to suppress internal insurrections, hunt
terrorists, and do the black bag jobs necessary to maintain the new New World Order.
Force Insertion is the world's merc monopoly. Its leader is the disgraced
former United States Marine General James Salter, stripped of his
command by the president for nuclear saber-rattling with the Chinese and banished to the Far East. A grandmaster military and political
strategist, Salter deftly seizes huge oil and gas fields, ultimately
making himself the most powerful man in the world. Salter's endgame is
to take vengeance on those responsible for his exile and then come
home... as Commander in Chief. The only man who can stop him is the
novel's narrator, Gilbert "Gent" Gentilhomme, Salter's most loyal foot
soldier and as close to him as the son Salter lost. As this
action-jammed, lightning fast, and brutally realistic novel builds to
its heart-stopping climax Gent launches his personally and
professionally most desperate mission: to take out his mentor and save
the United States from self destruction.
Infused by a staggering breadth of research in military tactics and steeped in the timeless
themes of the honor and valor of men at war that distinguish all of
Pressfield’s fiction, The Profession is that rare novel that informs and challenges the reader almost as much as it entertains.
Steven Pressfield
Steven Pressfield is a bestselling historical novelist whose books include the classic Gates of Fire, Alexander: The Virtues of War The Afghan Campaign and Killing Rommel. He lives in Los Angeles.