America at Night Hardcover - 2007

by Larry J. Kolb

The shocking true story of two former CIA operatives and their elaborate scheme involving multimillion dollar deals, Al Qaeda, and the US presidency-by the man who foiled their plan.

Robert Sensi speaks five languages fluently and blends into a crowd with unmatched ease. He has worked, or claimed to work, for the CIA, the Republican National Committee, and Kuwait Airlines. He has served time in prison for embezzlement and fraud. Sensi is wanted for questioning for a plot involving Al Qaeda, but the only information in the Department of Homeland Security's files is that he once worked for the CIA.

Richard Hirschfeld was recruited to work for the CIA by Bob Sensi, but puts Sensi to shame in the arts of subterfuge. In the seventies, Hirschfeld duped investors out of several million dollars by setting up a phony investment bank; his business partner died in mysterious circumstances, benefiting Hirschfeld to the tune of $5 million; and he allegedly stole a $12 million pay-off from Ferdinand Marcos intended for Ronald Reagan. He, like Sensi, had extensive connections to the Republican Party elite, and he too spent time in federal prison, for tax evasion and conspiracy.

It takes Larry Kolb, former spy, to figure out that Sensi and Hirschfeld have been working together smuggling billionaire Russian mafiosos into the United States. Homeland Security never even managed to take a photo of Hirschfeld, and they can't get the FBI and the CIA to verify each other's accounts. But even once arrests have been made, Kolb is certain that something more sinister is afoot. And when he begins to connect the dots, he realizes that he's on tothe biggest possible con with the highest political stakes....

America at Night reads like a thriller, but the story is all too real. Kolb shows us exactly how one well-informed individual can do what all of our security agencies cannot: Follow the trail of two con men's dark crimes through a network of disguised identities and hidden transactions to reveal danger and corruption at the highest levels.