Equipment

In 2005, an itinerant hit man finds himself out of his depth when a CIA operative's casual error draws an array of significant forces to a sedate Midwestern city: all are formidable, some are irresistible. Charles Foster, PhD, is a CIA agent pulled from slick East Asia duties to 'cool' in the lecture halls of a prestigious Midwestern university. When he's tasked by a high-level figure to craft an unusual and difficult bit of computer code, he finds himself battling disruptive habits and personal failings in a bid to stick to the script. Marek Hussar is dark, compact, and well financed. He's an operator with a hint of accent, a shiny car, a cache of weapons, and the philosophical detachment of a man with nothing left to win; and for Charles Foster and the other pertinent players, his appearance is a potentially bad omen.

In 2005, Charles Foster is suffering setbacks both personal and professional: he's been pulled from jet-setting overseas duties and stuffed behind a lectern in a rust belt river-city town—where his wife and child have left him to return to the alabaster and cordials of Washington, DC. When he receives a pet assignment and an inevitable personal challenge, he discovers he may make the worst of them both. Edmund LeFrance is a habitual gambler and itinerant hit man whose employer accepts a job from a CIA agent—it's a simple fix that could have long-term implications. Hoyt Gamlin is retired SAS from working-class Britain. A missing compatriot draws him from sunny Los Angeles into the search—and his characteristic aggression. And Marek Hussar is a recent arrival—seemingly a businessman with little furniture and a wealth of kit—an eccentric and enigmatic foreign national whose motions and motivations interleave and unfold beside Foster, LeFrance, and Gamlin, as they each move to discover, subvert, and survive the intentions of the other.

Hesse Caplinger has written fiction, essays, profiles, and criticism. His work has appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis Magazine, Glasstire, and elsewhere. He is the author of the novel "Equipment." The second volume of the limited series, "The Hussar Cycle," is expected to be released in 2021.