Gerard Hague-Holmes

Gerard is the scion of a family steeped in military tradition and has spent much of his life studying military history, particularly that of more recent military conflicts. Whilst now retired, Gerard trained as a Chartered Accountant and spent most of his working life in the finance sector particularly in Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorist Financing, much of his career being spent in the Middle East. Gerard enjoys adventure and is a Scuba Diving Instructor and an RYA Yachtmaster. Gerard combines his military background, financial background and sense of adventure in this, his first novel.

Desert Retribution

When former US Special Forces operative Daniel Mercer opens an email from his son serving in Iraq, his life is shattered in an instant. Attached is a photograph — his son, Jack’s, severed head, held up as a trophy by his killers.

Within hours, Daniel learns that the same image has reached his estranged wife, Elena Mercer, a senior CIA analyst at Langley. Grief quickly gives way to something darker: a relentless need for answers — and for justice.

Elena begins a covert intelligence investigation that leads her to a rising insurgent figure: Khalid al-Ghazzal, a charismatic and ruthless jihadist with growing influence across Iraq and Syria. Khalid’s reputation is built on brutality and myth — his legend fuelled by a near-miraculous escape from a British SAS ambush and his role in orchestrating high-profile executions designed to provoke the West.

As Elena works within the system to confirm Khalid’s identity, Daniel rejects official channels entirely. Drawing on his past, he reconnects with former SAS commander Stuart Bonham and assembles a small, highly skilled team of ex-special forces operatives. Their mission is simple, unofficial, and entirely deniable: find Khalid — and kill him.

Their investigation leads them into the shadow world of international arms trafficking, where terrorist networks, wealthy financiers, and corrupt intermediaries intersect. The trail runs through Dubai’s glittering skyline and into its hidden underbelly — specifically the labyrinthine Gold Souk, where Khalid’s family wealth is quietly laundered through legitimate trade.

With the reluctant assistance of Farid al-Nassar, a powerful but morally ambiguous businessman with his own stake in the outcome, the team infiltrates a network of weapons shipments stretching from Eastern Europe to the Middle East. Each step brings them closer to Khalid, but also deeper into a web of competing interests where loyalty is fluid and betrayal is inevitable.

Meanwhile, Elena’s investigation uncovers a critical detail: during the execution of Jack Mercer, Khalid was wounded — bitten by his victim in a final act of defiance. The injury alters Khalid’s speech, providing a key piece of forensic evidence that confirms his identity beyond doubt.

As both paths converge in Dubai, the operation reaches its climax. Under the cover of a high-level meeting between arms dealers, financiers, and intermediaries, Daniel and his team finally come face to face with Khalid.

The confrontation is swift and violent.

Khalid is killed.

But in the aftermath, Daniel discovers that revenge does not bring the closure he expected. The rage that sustained him is gone, replaced by a hollow absence. Justice has been served — but at a personal cost that cannot be undone.

As the team disperses and the official narrative is quietly buried, Daniel returns home a changed man. Elena, still operating within the CIA, understands that the world they live in offers no clean endings — only temporary resolutions.

Desert Retribution is a high-stakes international thriller that explores the intersection of personal loss and geopolitical conflict, where the lines between justice and vengeance blur, and where the consequences of violence extend far beyond the battlefield.