Orphan X

Do you need my help? It was always the first question he asked. They called him when they had nowhere else to turn. Raised and trained as part of a top-secret programme, he was sent to the worst places in the world to do things his government denied any knowledge of. Then he broke with the programme and disappeared. But now someone's on his tail. Someone who knows he was once known simply as Orphan X.

Taken from a children's home as a young boy, Evan Smoak was a trained to become a government operative known as Orphan X. But then he broke with the programme. Now living out of sight and out of reach of his former employers, Evan chances upon a young woman in a coffee shop in Northern California who needs his help. Brutalised and under the control of a very powerful, dangerous man, she knows her life is at risk if she doesn't escape. And Evan knows that only a man with his particular set of skills has any chance of setting her free. His next move was never in doubt.

Ambushed and drugged, Evan Smoak wakes up in a locked room with no idea where he is or who has captured him. As he tries to piece together what's happened, he receives a desperate call for help. With time running out, he will need to out-manoeuvre a powerful opponent to have any chance of escape. He's got to save himself to protect those whose lives depend on him...or die trying.

To some he was Orphan X. Others knew him as the Nowhere Man. But to veteran spymaster Jack Johns, he was a boy named Evan Smoak. Taken from an orphanage, Evan was raised inside a top secret programme designed to turn him into a deadly weapon. Jack became his instructor, mentor, teacher and guardian. Because for all the dangerous skills he instilled in his young charge, he also cared for Evan like a son. And now Jack needs Evan’s help....

Before he was the Nowhere Man, Evan Smoak was a highly trained government operative known to a few as Orphan X. But he now lives by hiding in plain sight, keeping his head down and his eyes clear. When a local summer intern for a tabloid news site finds herself trailing an aggressive reporter into a crime zone, things go terribly awry. The only person who can help her is a man with the background and the skills of the Nowhere Man.

As a boy, Evan Smoak was taken from the orphanage he called home and inducted into a top secret Cold War programme. Trained as a lethal weapon, he and his fellow recruits were sent round the world to do the government's dirty work. But the programme was rotten to the core. And now the man responsible needs things to be nice and clean. All evidence must be destroyed. That includes Evan. To survive, Evan's going to have to take the fight to his nemesis. There's just one problem with that. Jonathan Bennett is President of the United States, and Evan isn't his only victim.

Once a government assassin codenamed Orphan X, Evan Smoak works as a vigilante for the desperate. Now he's ready to retire. Then he gets a call. Max Merriweather's cousin has been murdered, and the woman he needs to find is missing. On the run and stalked by an assassin, Max calls the one person who could save him: Evan Smoak. But the forces ranged against Evan and Max are as lethal as Evan has ever faced. Keeping Max alive will be hard. Staying alive himself might be impossible....

Joey Morales was the last recruit of the government's full black operation, the Orphan Program. Trained to be an assassin until she washed out, she was rescued by Evan Smoak, the former agent known as Orphan X. Now Joey, still a teenager and under the watchful eye of Evan Smoak, lives on her own (with Dog the dog) and attends college. While on campus, she tries to stop a young woman's suicide attempt and fails. Then Joey uncovers the reason for Becca Morgan's desperate act - a document called The List, which ranks and rates women around campus based on sexual appeal and performance.

'Evan. It's your mother. I heard you help people....' Evan Smoak used to be known as Orphan X: a figure as elusive as a rumour, until he came to the rescue of those who most desperately needed his help. The kind of help no one else could provide. The kind that caused concern in the corridors of power. As a boy he'd been plucked from a foster home and trained as an off-the-books assassin inside a top secret US government programme. Which is why, even forced into early retirement, he dare not trust the phone call.

Evan Smoak is a man with many identities and a challenging past. As Orphan X, he was a government assassin for the off-the-books Orphan Program. After he broke with the program, he adopted a new name and a new mission - the Nowhere Man, helping the most desperate in their times of trouble. Having just survived an attack on his life, and the complete devastation of his base of operations, as well as his complicated (and deepening) relationship with his neighbour, Mia Hall, Evan isn't interested in taking on a new mission. But one finds him anyway.

As a child, Evan Smoak was plucked out of a group home, raised and trained as an off-the-books assassin for the government as part of the Orphan program. When he broke with the program and went deep underground, he left with a lot of secrets in his head that the government would do anything to make sure never got out. When he remade himself as The Nowhere Man, dedicated to helping the most desperate in their times of trouble, Evan found himself slowly back on the government's radar.

Once a black book government assassin known as Orphan X, Evan Smoak left the program, went deep underground, and reinvented himself as someone who will go anywhere, and risk everything to help the truly desperate who have nowhere else to turn. Since then, Evan has fought international crime syndicates and drug cartels, faced down the most powerful people in the world and even brought down a President. Struggling with an unexpected personal crisis, Evan goes back to the very basics of his mission - and this time, the truly desperate is a little girl who wants him to find her missing dog.

Evan Smoak doesn’t have many friends. Goes with the territory for a former off-the-books government assassin. He certainly can’t afford to fall out with the best of them. But Tommy Stojack, a gifted quartermaster whom Evan trusts and relies on, has crossed a line. And when Evan tries to confront him, instead of robust conversation, he comes under attack. Now it’s war. Tommy’s got other things on his mind, though. He promised a dying comrade that he’d be there for the man’s son, and now the boy’s got himself into a world of trouble.

Brought to you by Penguin. The Nowhere Man is a legendary figure spoken about only in whispers. It’s said that when he’s reached by the truly desperate and deserving, the Nowhere Man can and will do anything to protect and save them. But he’s not merely a legend. Taken from a foster home...