Read the first three chapters of Quaid’s upcoming thriller, Astroplane, here.

Quaid Rafferty is the founder and beating heart of Third Chance Enterprises: a team of freelance operatives capable of stealing the unstealable, preventing (or inciting) coups, rescuing anybody, and reversing worldwide anarchy.

Quaid started out — gulp — a politician. Elected governor of Massachusetts at the ripe age of thirty four, he pursued progressive causes near and dear to his heart. He humanized the state’s criminal justice system. He reformed its mental health bureaucracy. Quaid’s prospects looked sterling. Rumors of a White House run began circulating.

Then trouble found him.

Misinterpreted texts to a call girl led to his party-line impeachment. Quaid battled through the scandal, greening the state’s municipal services and energy strategy, winning back his constituents’ trust. He won reelection by six points.

Then Quaid ran afoul of Draktor Industrial.

Draktor’s plan to bring Pennsylvanian natural gas to the Northeast relied heavily on western Massachusetts — as well as high-tech pipeline technology with no safety record. Quaid rallied like-minded legislators to block the initiative.

Days before the vote, emails soliciting the services of a well-known madam were discovered on Quaid’s personal computer.

This time impeachment was unanimous. He served ten months in jail, emerging disgraced.

Many would’ve downshifted, started a family in some suburban hamlet where gossip would be minimal, where the children might be raised without thinking their father a degenerate.

But Quaid believed life had more in store for him. Loads more.

He believed he could make a third chance.

He bent ears across his vast network of contacts. He needed a partner to exact revenge on Draktor.

Various moguls and financiers listened. They thought he was insane. Draktor Industrial had annual revenues surpassing the GDP of Ireland. Sure, they were crooked. So? Getting them back would be impossible.

Quaid didn’t believe in impossible.

Finally, a sitting member of the House Arms Services committee put him onto Durwood Oak Jones. “Now he’s wound tight,” she warned. “But he’s out of work, too. Old warhorse. He might be convinced to help you.”

Seven years on, Quaid, Durwood, and the ever-enticing Molly McGill are the premier small-force, private-arms operators in the Western world.