Captured and imprisoned in the Roca Negra fortress, XIII is being tortured by the sinister Colonel Peralta. But, for all his pain and suffering, he's also in the same building as Maria, the woman who may be his wife. And they have plenty of dedicated, resourceful friends outside... as well as at least one traitor. Still unsure of his past, Jason McLane will have no choice but to become the man known as "El Cascador" to clean up Costa Verde once and for all.
Colonel Amos is the head of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division. His current investigation sends him on the trail of an agent of Mossad - Israeli intelligence. The ensuing operation - a joint FBI/CIA effort - will prove to be a difficult one. Not only because of the agent's skill, or because the colonel and his CIA counterpart Giordino don't get along, but also because before coming to the USA, Samuel Amos was a founding member of Mossad...
Spirou and Fantasio's friend, the Count of Champignac, asks them to join him in Australia, where he has heard that an ancient monolith is still standing. When they arrive, Champignac's colleague Walker Donahue informs them that Champignac has been abducted by local gangster Sam. The monolith they're after stands in the vicinity of an aboriginal mining village, which is constantly prey to white prospectors trying to steal indigenous resources.
Spirou and Fantasio must save Champignac from Sam's clutches and help him find the legendary monolith while standing by the aboriginal people.
XIII is hiding in France at the Préseaus, after a past more nebulous he even believed possible caught up to him again. But the organisation that's after him hasn't said its last word, and has considerable means at its disposal. It lures Jones, on duty in Afghanistan, into a terrible ambush, for the sole purpose of serving as bait for the amnesiac - who immediately rushes to her rescue. Meanwhile, Betty Barnowsky-Préseau is off to Maine to dig into XIII's past...
After the terrible attack on the Capitol, the Mayflower Foundation, now under the sole leadership of Janet Fitzsimmons, succeeded in taking over the US government. As for Jason McLane, he has become a puppet controlled electronically by Janet - and is now also her husband, as well as one of the new president's closest advisors. When XIII goes to Cuba in order to covertly spring a Russian hacker from prison, he has no idea his past will once again come back to haunt him ...
XIII survived the trip back to his childhood home. The Mongoose has finally been caught and is in a high-security jail. But there is still one piece of the puzzle missing, and when President Sheridan asks him to discover who the Number I is, the man now known as Jason McLane doesn't hesitate for long. His best chance: finding Kim Rowland wherever she may be hiding. But the Mongoose has powerful allies and won't stay locked up forever...
Larry B. Max is an unusual specialist from a little-known branch of the I.R.S. (Internal Revenue Service), the all-powerful tax-collecting agency of the United States, which has every technological method at his disposal to link high finance and high crime. Max unravels the financial and logistical organisations which supports a huge drugs operation between Mexico and the US. In the process, though, the lines between legality and providing jobs for thousands of people, between prosperity and morals become blurred.
Jason McLane - XIII - has just taken a shot at the pope during an
official visit to Washington DC. If he hadn't, two innocent hostages
would have paid the price. Granted, General Wolf's orders were always
to maintain his cover at all costs, but the plans of the Mayflower
conspirators - the same people that XIII was supposed to infiltrate
but now control him through blackmail - are appallingly more complex and dangerous than just this assassination attempt. American
democracy itself is in danger ...
He was XIII's most dogged enemy from the start, but who really was the Mongoose, that mysterious assassin-for-hire who nearly killed the amnesiac hero so many times? During an encounter between him and Kim Rowland - an event that took place just before the start of the XIII series - the merciless hitman tells the story of his childhood and how he became a contract killer. `Anyone would have in my circumstances', he claims. But would they? You be the judge.
Belarus, in Soviet times. Irina is an unremarkable young woman growing up in an orphanage. One night, a mysterious visitor demands to see her and her best friend Julia. The latter goes first, then Irina is told she won't be needed after all. The next day, Julia has vanished without a trace... Thus begins a quest for truth and vengeance, from Minsk to Moscow to Washington - one that will lead Irina to discover her true calling.
With the conspiracy that nearly claimed his life dismantled, XIII can finally turn all his attention towards uncovering his own distant past. Armed with everything he could find on Jason Fly-the man he seems to be-he heads to Green Falls, where he grew up. The problem with amnesia is that you never know exactly what you'll dig up when you go home again. And... is everything really solved concerning the presidential assassination that cost him his memory?
Little by little, XIII has reconstructed most of his life and figured out who he is. With one exception: There is still a gap in his college years, when Jason McLane became Kelly Brian. A gap that may mean the amnesiac adventurer is in fact an Irish terrorist, Seamus O'Neil. This flashback brings us back to Boulder, Colorado, and before that to Northern Ireland, to reveal the last piece of the XIII puzzle, and his final identity.
Jason has managed to give his captors the slip, but he was forced to leave Betty behind, severely injured. After a short but tense episode dealing with the north-eastern mafia, he's off to the next step in his quest: Leiden, Holland, from where half of the Mayflower expedition left, and where his godfather appears to live. But his enemies haven't given up, and the young local guide he's picked brings her own heap of troubles...
Still with Annika, Jason McLane has the documents his godfather left for him to find in the Netherlands deciphered. Once translated, the text offers revelations of breathtaking importance - enough to change the geopolitical map for ever. But the killers sent by the Mayflower Foundation are still after them, while in Afghanistan, Jones and Carrington's situation goes from bad to worse. XIII will have to be on his best game to sort it all out - but at what price?
XIII and Jones are on the run. Hunted by local authorities, they're suspected of three murders, including that of The Mongoose's hired killer. The sheriff of Green Falls, henchman to the town's biggest landowner, is all too happy to accuse the fugitives: The two men don't want certain details from the past to surface. XIII is going to have to survive long enough to dig up the truth about what really happened on the night of August 3rd long ago...
Jason McLane, a.k.a. XIII, seems to have finally accepted his true
destiny. Tired of fighting the powerful elite who control the world,
he has apparently joined them. Of course, he supposedly did so on
orders from General Wolf, so as to bring down the sinister Mayflower
Foundation at last, but ... what if the temptation of power proved too
strong? Janet Fitzsimmons, the Foundation's president, too beautiful? Or the price of integrity too steep for him ... or his friends?
Is the world barrelling towards the apocalypse? Russian commandoes are positioned around Georgia and its vital pipelines, fanatical terrorists are bent on eliminating Saudi Arabia's reigning family... With oil barons indifferent to the potential damage their stock market manipulations could cause, only one man stands against a scheme of utter cynicism: Larry B. Max. This time, the IRS agent intends to stop his sworn enemy Madsen for good - and rescue the woman he's loved for so long, Kate.
Suzan Fitzroy is in Sweden, where her adopted father is filling in for the American Ambassador. The most exciting prospect on her agenda is the Nobel Prize ceremony. But her quiet life in Stockholm is disrupted when the mysterious Orion, the secretive anti-terror agent, contacts her: He has another job for her. The "simple task" turns into something much more complex, and before long Suzan is deeply involved in a conspiracy that has links to her past-and to her heart.
In JFK's America, halfway between spy thriller and noir novel, the
tragic road-movie of a father and his son, revolving around a
mysterious list that everyone's willing to kill for. 1961, Illinois.
Alex Poliac buries his wife Alice. That evening, he and his son flee
their home. Not because he is a suspect in Alice's death, but because
a serial killer - The Clown - is prowling the state, and Alex knows how he picks his victims. A rough meeting with Laura, a friend of his
wife, brings more questions: was Alice hiding something, with her
mysterious phone calls and unexplained absences? Was her death really
an accident?
Alex Poliac and his son are still on the run, having evaded both the
FBI and the Clown - the supposed serial killer who's actually a KGB
hatchet man. Because Alex is in fact a Soviet sleeper agent, part of
a network run by legendary spy Sasha, a shadowy figure among the US's
most wanted list. He is also the only holder of the Route 66 List,
which contains the names of every agent implanted in the States along
the celebrated road - the same agents Sasha is now having killed.
During the 1961 floods in Kansas, the Clown is searching a house,
looking for important documents. When the police arrive, though, a
shoot-out ensues that ends in the killer's apparent death. And yet ...
By the time the owner of the house returns, along with Alex Poliac,
the documents have disappeared, and Alex is convinced his old enemy
is still alive. Meanwhile, FBI Agent Laura Kensington is arrested for treason ...
Four years have passed since Rob Poliac fled the house where two FBI
agents died and his father Alex was shot by the Clown - and his real
boss, Laura Kensington. He now lives under an assumed name with Carl,
an old friend of Alex's. But when his guardian dies, the young man
finds himself the owner of the infamous List 66. Little by little,
against his better judgement, he begins to investigate the names on
it ...
There are bad memories in Larry Max's past. Dark figures specialised in shady dealings that once bullied and defeated the young, novice IRS agent. He never forgot, though. And now those names are coming up again in relation to some relatively minor trading fraud. But when Larry begins unravelling the threads, from Texas to Azerbaijan, what he discovers is anything but minor: secrets that could make a select few immensely rich - and set the world ablaze.
The Mongoose is dead. So is Number I. But, since he was the President of the United States, XIII's friends are all on the run again. McLane, though, has been arrested, and he's being judged in secret by the heads of the American intelligence community. Sentenced to life in a secret prison, he has no illusions that he'll ever reach it. The ruthlessness of the NSA Director proves him right-but he's not the only one who wants XIII dead.
