Final Bearing (Tom Doherty Associates Books)

Juan de Santiago is not only a billionaire coca grower. He is also a deranged revolutionary, the commander of the most powerful private army in South America. Backed by power-hungry rogue nations who supply him with the latest weaponry, de Santiago devices a plan that will dishearten the American antidrug effort and make him El Jefe once and for all.

A successful soldier in Florida's antidrug war, Tom Kincaid is an expert on Colombia, with connections that lead directly to Juan de Santiago himself. But when U.S. politicians demand a publicity-driven drug bust, they blow the cover of Kincaid's carefully crafted network, leaving most of his informants dead, and get the DEA agent exiled to the relative backwater of Seattle.

Commander Jonathan Ward and his crew on the old attack sub Spadefish are on one last mission. They are to launch a strike that will put de Santiago and his empire out of business for good. They are getting help from Bill Beaman and his SEAL team, who are searching for the secret laboratories of de Santiago. Following deep jungle trails and hiking the lofty mountains of the ancient Inca Empire, they are intent on driving a stake through the heart of de Santiago's drug empire.

But there is a leak in the Colombian government, and Beaman and his SEALs are being stalked. From the old highways of the Incas to the plush haciendas of the drug lords, guerrilla armies are lurking, striking out at those who threaten their lucrative trade. And at the same time, a futuristic minisub leaves Colombia. Destination: Seattle. And it is loaded with the most lethal, addictive substance known to man.

Raised on a farm in eastern Ohio, Commander George Wallace CDR USN (ret) served twenty-two years on nuclear submarines. He learned submarining on two of Admiral Rickover's famous "Forty One for Freedom", the USS John Adams (SSBN 620) and the USS Woodrow Wilson (SSBN 624), out of Charleston SC. CDR Wallace was the Executive Officer on the Sturgeon class nuclear attack submarine Spadefish (SSN 668) out of Norfolk VA and commanded the Los Angeles class nuclear attack submarine USS Houston (SSN 713) out of San Diego CA and Pearl Harbor HI.

An avid athlete, Commander Wallace was a member of the 1994 All Navy Ironman Team that represented the Navy in competing at the Ironman Triathlon World Championship at Kona, Hawaii. He has competed in many marathons, triathlons and ultra-marathons.

Commander Wallace and his wife Penny now make their home in Granada Hills, California.

Don Keith is a successful broadcaster and critically acclaimed novelist. His debut novel, The Forever Season, was named the 1997 Fiction Award Winner by the Alabama Library Association. Keith and his wife, Charlene, live in Indian Springs Village, Alabama.