The Central Asia desk at CIA headquarters is supposed to be the farthest place from intrigue-until analyst Connie Rivas uncovers a buried confession from Chen Yu, a Chinese landman, claiming the Agency traded state secrets to sway a Kazakh energy deal.As Connie risks her career to dig deeper, she's pulled into Chen's harrowing account of the bleak gas fields of western Kazakhstan, where bribes flow faster than pipeline crude and loyalty scampers from basin to basin.Caught between his handlers, his country, and a daughter descending into silence, Chen lays bare a final act of desperation-one that could damn him, or spark a flicker of redemption.