Book excerpt: The only job young Frank has ever had is flying A7 jets off an aircraft carrier while serving in Vietnam. After being shot down, he’s held captive in the Hanoi Hilton before he’s released. He comes home to find that his fiancée has married someone else, which sends him spiraling into depression. He bums around despondently for a year until he meets Antoinette and the two begin a sizzling affair. As it turns out, Antoinette is a recruiter for an organization called the ‘Company’, a group of mercenaries operating from a training facility in Panama, where they’re hired for missions strictly in a gray area. Not only does Frank fall for Antoinette, with whom he has a child, he falls in love with a young librarian Dana. He manages the two relationships successfully throughout most of his adult life, and when those relationships end, there are several notable affairs that follow. The life of a mercenary may sound exciting, but it teaches him that there is no life after retirement if you are employed by the ‘Company.’ Follow Frank’s through his working life, and a love life marked by steamy romance and hot sex.