Book excerpt: In the decades following the second world war, the United States created new agencies and departments to address a wide range of issues including intelligence, emergency response to disaster and disease as well as covert warfare both abroad and domestically. These converge on discovery of a new threat not only to the U.S. but to the fundamental nature of human society and physiology. Quincy Barns, a former U.S. Army Ranger and CIA paramilitary operative, learns that not only are vampires real but there is a professional combat force trained and equipped to face the threat they pose. Once recruited into Squad Five Quincy faces enemies and inner dilemmas like nothing the hardened veteran can imagine.