Blogger’s note: Today, you’ll hear from Makmoud Hidari, an antagonist in Operation Silver Star. He has much to say about his role in the book.

Tell me a little about yourself.

Just a little, eh? Perhaps it suffices to say that you don’t want to cross me. I jest, at least for now. I have a very storied history with the Quds Force and have achieved the rank of colonel. I intend for it to stay this way.

Name three significant events that have happened to you.

The three things all hinge around my interactions with a man named Victor Chavez. That’s right, you’ve heard of him. Hero of Operation Shadow Box, correct? Our takedown of the team at Last Chance Ranch was one of my greatest achievements. And failures.

The achievement first. You see, I transformed his lover into one of my best moles. That was before he ever met her. She was a Secret Service agent as well as his lover. And when the time came, she served her purpose. Then she died, plain and simple as that.

And the failure. I had planned to kill Deborah Fields, an FBI Web hunter who had stalked another mole I had within the agency. Victor and his Shadow Box team spirited her away to parts unknown. Yet thanks to Gary Walton, my mole, I found her in Arizona. I had plans for her and the Shadow Box members. Grand plans. Which failed at Victor’s hand. Of course, I played on his turf for that one.

And perhaps the last one is that my sister’s dead lover came under the care of our cell in Venezuela. After our failed mission, she became my lover. You should not seem shocked. I’ve learned over the years how to break people and re-form them. I did so with her. Yet then she surprised me because I fell in love with her. She became more than my lover. She became my best friend. Then when I returned to Iran in 2014, she became my wife. I’m now the father of two little girls who have rapidly become the apple of my eye. I call them my bookends to my wife.

What blind spot do you have?

I’m no fool. We all have blind spots. Mine was an overestimation of my abilities in 2014 when I thought I had everything well in hand with the takedown of the Shadow Box team. I erred. That error cost me dearly. I lost status in the eyes of my organization. I stalled at my rank of colonel. And I became a mere errand boy for the generals and mullahs. Such humiliation!

What do you want us to learn from Operation Silver Star? The desire for redemption is real. And revenge. And now I work with a client from the States who wants his little problem to go away. His colleague is in the gunrunning side of life, and that’s how he found out about me. I’m happy to oblige him, you understand. It’s not the ten million I’ll have upon completion of my mission. It’s Victor Chavez. And when he arrives in Iraq—and he will—he’ll play on my turf.