When former FBI Agent Matt Steel retired from the FBI after twenty-five years of undercover operations, locking up mobsters and drug dealers and following terrorists, he took a job as the Director of Security at a major Las Vegas casino. Alex, his wife of thirty-five years, thought that they could finally enjoy the well-deserved benefits of a post FBI life: Especially after they bought the weekend ranch in a secluded mountainous area at the north end of Death Valley. It was remote, wild and had some interesting history to it. There was the old gold stamp mill, the mysterious grave of Nancy Walker, and the ancient Timbisha summer camp of the Desert Shoshone Tribe. When Matt discovers a federally protected witness who is hiding out in the small Nevada town of Tonopah is operating an international Ponzi scheme right under the collective noses of the government's Witness Protection Program, he and his former partner, Charlie, go to work. It gets personal for them when they come to realize that the scam artist and a corrupt public official are trying to steal a gold claim being worked by two local characters who are friends of theirs. There is a murder for hire scheme, wire taps, surveillances, and a mystical twist in the form of an ancient Indian artifact discovered on the ranch. It all culminates in an ending, in which the artifact plays a pivotal role.
