Gallant Deception by Edward Hayes

About the book

A brilliantly manipulative old woman with a sordid and promiscuous World War II pedigree, seeks a long-lost document. It is a prize that is potentially worth millions. Her first attempt at its recovery cost her the life of her only son. Now she must coerce her alluring and sultry daughter into traveling to Berlin and assuming the dangerous search. The task is further complicated by the old woman's refusal to reveal any more of the truth to her daughter than she did to her son. The deception flowers as the suspicious and reluctant daughter recruits her ex-husband, who is still in love with her, and his best friend, a retired Special Forces Officer who was separated from the Army under provocative, and classified circumstances.

Though the boy died without knowing it, his scheming mother maneuvered him into going to Berlin because she was desperate for a courier to bring back the original draft of a secret treaty between England and Nazi-Germany. In 1941, the just six weeks before Adolf Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, Rudolf Hess, the number three man in the Third Reich, flies from Southern Germany into Northern Scotland and parachutes to within five miles of his destination. The German-born old woman is one of four people, still living, who knows why.

Unfortunately, one of the other four people is the "Banker." He is the despotic leader of the "Organization," the clandestine body of financiers and industrialists whose single twentieth-century goal has been the acquisition and control of cheap oil. Not only did the Organization finance the Third Reich, it is the Organization that was the seductive power behind the lost treaty. The Banker cannot survive the personal and financial repercussions that would result from public exposure of that document. If the heinous details of the treaty are revealed, and the signatory parties identified, the Organization will have to accelerate its timetable to forcibly remove the only obstacle preventing it from acquiring control of Middle-Eastern oil: Israel.

As the eclectic team assembled by the old woman's daughter follows the circuitous trail of her dead brother, the Organization hires a duplicitous Ukrainian assassin to do the same. The two search parties, each initially oblivious of the other's presence, soon encounter a third element that is equally determined to locate the document. A intellectual, but ruthless, octogenarian who is an Israeli Mossod agent stumbles upon the deadly intersection of these competing forces and realizes the implications for his nation. The race to recover the treaty is transformed into a triangular tour-de-force injected with lethal doses of homicide, kidnaping, incest, and deception.

The assassin makes a grave error, is fatally compromised, and the Mossod kills him. Even with the assassin dead, the Organization still threatens the very existence of the Jewish State because it sits poised to launch a well-orchestrated, pan-Arabic war against Israel that will destroy her. Only the hard copy reality of the document, presented directly to the Banker can stave off hostilities. The former Special Forces officer, following coded clues in a letter written by the deceased boy, digs the priceless ten-page treaty out of a graveyard and smuggles it out of Germany. But he soon realizes that the all-important signatory page is missing.

The old woman's daughter backtracks to her mother's home and uses Sodium Pentothal, truth serum, to uncover the whole truth. In the process, the missing page is retrieved from a old photo album. Now, with the complete and incriminating treaty in hand, a deal is struck with the Mossod and the daughter's team confronts the Banker with hard-copy evidence of his World War II treachery. Deployed Organization operatives are ordered to stand down, and a Middle-East conflagration is averted. The Banker, to escape ridicule and preserve the Organization, agrees to remunerate the old woman's daughter, her ex-husband, and the army officers. Israel survives.

About the author

Chief Warrant Officer Edward Hayes is currently a U.S. Army Reservist called to active duty for Operation Iraqi Freedom. During the course of the war he served as an Iraq Intelligence Officer, and is now working the Russia Desk at the Joint Analysis Center at RAF Molesworth in the United Kingdom. He has been awarded the Joint Service Achievement Medal for his OIF contributions during the war.

His military activation interrupted both his principalship of a suburban Chicago high school, and the writing of his dissertation for a doctorate in educational administration at the University of Illinois. Both his bachelors and masters degrees, in history and education, are from Chicago State University in 1968 and 1992 respectively.

Ed, aged 57, and a Chicago native, has a rather eclectic background including service to his country, the private sector, and public education.

Military
He has prior Vietnam-era enlisted service with US Air Force Intelligence in Europe. After an honorable discharge he took a twelve-year break from the military before re-enlisting in the Army Reserve. Ed was soon selected for appointment as a Warrant Officer. After completing basic parachute training at Fort Benning, at age forty, he was immediately recruited by the 12th Special Forces Group's 77th Military Intelligence Detachment where he served for nine years before being reassigned to European Command.

Civilian
During that break in service between the Air Force and the Army Reserve Ed worked in the private sector as a regional manager for Digital Equipment Corporation, and subsequently as a stockbroker for Merrill Lynch. Then he answered the call to teach and coach in the inner city of Chicago. Upon the death of his father, a retired World War II Army Officer and pilot, Ed decided to re-enter the armed forces as a reservist.

Family
His wife is Kay, a superintendent of a suburban school district, and he has two adult daughters. His firstborn, Erin, manages real estate in Los Angeles, and the youngest, Jennifer, is in her last year at Emory University.

Personal Tidbits
Ed is a private pilot with numerous hours logged in a variety of "warbird's" ranging from the DeHavilland Tiger Moth to the North American AT-6 Texan. His dedication to working with children resulted in winning 2002 Coach-of-the-Year honors after his school's Joliet team won its fourth consecutive city basketball title. He became the first African-American to attain Executive Club status at Merrill Lynch.