Arms Cash

When a British Defence Executive receives a chilling early morning phone call warning that someone wants him dead, he’s forced to make a life-or-death decision in the heart of the Middle East. ARMS CASH is a gripping true-life memoir describing covert arms deals, illicit commissions, and dangerous betrayals in one of the world’s most high-stakes industries, where billion-pound contracts, political agendas, and personal survival collide.

Houston's unique book describes the dark underbelly of the international defence sales world, where success demands secrecy, manipulation and nerves of steel, a domain in which one wrong move can cost you everything. ‘Arms Cash’ charts Houston’s own travels from Singapore to Seattle, from Harare to Kharkov and from Riyadh to Rawalpindi as a Corporate foot-soldier hunting down lucrative Defence contracts. He describes the lure of illicit ‘Arms Cash’ commissions to Companies and covert Agents alike, recalling encounters with exotic and dangerous people and contextualising his travellers’ tales to over forty countries with accounts of major Arms corruption events. Houston reflects on the eye-watering waste of UK Taxpayers cash by the MoD, an institutionalised form of ‘Arms Cash’.

‘Arms Cash’ throws light onto a world of international travel, of clandestine meetings and deals, a world which is changing and slipping beyond governmental control. He describes a personal epiphany as his hardened ‘mission-focussed’ attitude to the Defence Industry and the Arms Trade is confronted, challenged and changed by a chilling encounter in Ukraine. ‘Arms Cash’ is awash with traveller’s tales, covert deals and military memories, but at the beating dark heart of the book remains Arms Cash itself, the international currency of corruption.