AT NEARLY 24,000 FEET over Alabama, Schrenker shouted "Four-two-eight-delta-charlie!" into his headset. He was cutting through the freezing January air at 300 mph in a single engine turbo-prop Piper Meridian. "Atlanta Center! This is an emergency! I'm experiencing severe turbulence and my windshield is spider cracking ... Windshield has failed!" At just shy of five miles above the Earth it was a devastating admission. Over 200 Miles away in Peachtree City, Georgia, half a d

EX-DEA TASK FORCE AGENT Donald Nides, placed his Taurus .357 revolver to the right-side of his head. He pushed the steel cylindrical barrel against the soft tissue of his grey temple; then pulled the hammer back until it clicked into the locked position and wrapped a finger around the trigger. It was November 5, 2014, a sticky, grey, Wednesday morning in the Big Easy. The humidity was so thick, it was as if the levees had never been repaired. Inside the single-story brick hou

IT’S UNCLEAR IF Sebastian Black[1] was wearing one of his signature Brioni suits and suspenders during the long flight to Australia. Nor do we know if the seasoned confidence man drank Sambuca on the rocks–his favorite liqueur–or flat soda. He may or may not have flirted with the attractive flight attendants in first-class. Regardless, when Sebastian stepped out of the Boeing Triple-Seven at Perth International Airport, it appeared he’d pulled off the perfect scam. It wasn’t

THE U.S. MARINES STOOD TAUT at the edge of the gatehouse, the black Suburbans and Lincoln Towncar entered the White House grounds. Inside the Lincoln sat Frank L. Amodeo, the founder of Mirabilis Ventures Inc, a conglomerate of over seventy companies in various industries—including consulting, corporate security, manufacturing, employee leasing and hotel ownership—with 40,000 employees and nearly a billion dollars in annual revenue. At the corporate mogul's mental core he was