The Contractor: A Novel

Rick Behringer is an outside contractor working for the Central Intelligence Agency. He owns a small company that, in the light of day, provides communications security for government offices, including the CIA. In the shadows, though, Rick's a spy. He runs overseas agents for the CIA and, through his firm, buys foreign military technology that the Agency wants to inspect but can't be seen purchasing.

The divorced father of two little girls, Rick carries on a cold war with his ex, Liz, and a hot romance with his sexy girlfriend, Frannie. He still broods over the mysterious death of his father, a high-level CIA officer during the Vietnam War, who committed suicide when Rick was thirteen.

Through contacts in what he calls the "Black World," Rick hears of a mysterious Pakistani Islamist, a rogue nuclear physicist, who is trying to acquire highly-enriched uranium in order to construct "an Islamic bomb" - a scheme that is all too credible. In tracking him down, Rick encounters a host of characters, some willing to help, many more willing to take his life. And in the explosive conclusion, he struggles in a deadly game of wits with Russian gangsters and the terrorist who is plotting nuclear mass murder in America.

In The Contractor, Colin MacKinnon shows once again his rare ability to turn real-world facts into riveting spy fiction. The Contractor could happen...could be happening now.

© 2025 St. Martin's Press (Ebook): 9781429936293

Release date

Ebook: 21 May 2025