A DARPA scientist, with a proclivity for bio-weaponry and genocide, has gone missing in Istanbul. Art Sheppard, the new Chief of the CIA's Near East and South Asia Division, suspects the involvement of an arcane, international cabal referred to only as The Board. Sheppard's last encounter with the group was on the heals of a near-miss operation in Shanghai run by NCIS Special Agent Ruben Carver. A man with a reputation for heavy-handed conflict resolution and an uncanny survival instinct, who'd already faced The Board twice. With intelligence leaks in the Agency compromising his operation, Sheppard is approved to enlist the assistance of NCIS and Carver. The mission is to fly in, find the traitor, put the grabs on him and devise an extraction, without involving in-country CIA or military support. A simple plan complicated by The Board's own interest in retaining the scientist's services, along with his life's work: A bacterial agent, once weaponized, that is a potential planet killer. The Istanbul Agent is another wild ride for Ruben Carver. A fast-paced tale of intrigue that introduces his match in the form of an Israeli counterintelligence specialist. The kind of woman he wouldn't mind spending time with, if he doesn't catch his death first.