Friendship Games by Mark James

Friendship Games by Mark James

The Persian Gulf erupts.

When a U.S. aircraft carrier explodes and sinks off Bahrain, Washington blames Tehran. Hours later, Iranian-backed militants strike the U.S. Navy base in Manama and the Bahraini royal palace. Retaliatory American airstrikes follow, pushing the region toward all-out war.

Friendship Games is a modern take on the USS Maine incident that launched the Spanish-American War in 1898-except this time the spark threatens to ignite a global conflict.

Facing what it believes is an existential threat, Iran unleashes a desperate preemptive blitz: missiles rain down on U.S. bases, and armored columns surge into neighboring states to deny America a foothold for invasion.

Caught in the storm are U.S. Navy SEALs and a young sailor, Thew Bryson, forced into a desperate fight for survival as they flee across borders with Iranian forces closing in. In Washington, Vice President George "Daddy Longlegs" Wartmann maneuvers through a collapsing chain of command, determined to see the fight through while the President hesitates.

From the palaces of the Gulf to the corridors of Washington to soldiers on the ground, Friendship Games is a taut, unflinching geopolitical thriller-where one misstep could set the world ablaze. Friendship Games marks the explosive beginning of the Wartmann Series, a sweeping series that explores the perilous intersection of politics, technology, and human ambition in the twenty-first century.