The Oven

Atwood "Woody" Stressel is a newly trained CIA clandestine operator who has been embedded in the first-year class of Grantland Medical School in an attempt to solve the mystery of disappearing undercover CIA personnel. Woody is only told of a strong suspicion that there is a mole in the CIA who has been turned by Russian agents and who is fingering operators who are kidnapped and tortured for classified information, then murdered. However, no bodies are ever found. The CIA has information that suggests that someone at the medical school is involved.

 

Woody meets the mysterious and alluring student Alina Karnitsky across the cadaver table in gross anatomy. Alina speaks fluent Russian, and Woody soon learns that Alina is an expert at weapons and street fighting. He is concerned that the woman is a Russian agent as well as a medical student, but has trouble convincing his CIA case manager to conduct a thorough background check. Woody cannot afford to flunk out of medical school, but his only hope of passing biochemistry is with tutoring from Alina.

 

During a nighttime excursion, Woody discovers the mutilated body of a pregnant woman in a vat of formalin in a heavily secured backroom of the gross anatomy lab. As Woody starts to uncover pieces of the missing operator puzzle, he becomes the target of assassination attempts. Alina tells Woody that his only chance of survival is to trust her to protect him. There are many twists and turns in the plot of this story that will keep the reader guessing until the very end.