200 IQ Hacker Turns Into an Assassin After His Wife is Killed By Terrorists

Summary

Charlie is a brilliant CIA analyst who helped design the agency’s security systems—and is much better at hacking than handling a gun. When he uncovers evidence that his boss, Chief Moore, authorized a disastrous drone strike and covered it up, the discovery is soon overshadowed by devastating news: his wife, Sarah, has been killed in a terrorist attack in London.

Convinced the official investigation is hiding something, Charlie reconstructs the hotel attack using security footage and identifies the four assailants: Mishka, Lawrence, Horst, and Gretchen. His superiors seem to know more than they admit, so Charlie blackmails them into providing training, false identities, money, and information about the killers.

Charlie is an awkward shot, but impresses his instructor with his talent for building bombs. When asked to prove he can kill someone face-to-face, however, his hands shake and he cannot do it.

After escaping CIA surveillance, Charlie begins pursuing the killers. His first attempt to confront Gretchen falls apart when he cannot pull the trigger. Instead, he tracks her to a hospital and exploits her severe allergies in a plan to make her reveal Horst’s whereabouts. The scheme turns into a messy fight, and Gretchen escapes—only to be struck by a car. Charlie is shaken by her death, which was not the clean act of revenge he had imagined.

On the run, Charlie teams up with Inquiline, a hacker who inherited the name and work of her late husband, a CIA asset. She helps him track the remaining targets, while he uses his technical skills to make up for his lack of combat experience.

In Madrid, Charlie engineers a dramatic trap for Mishka: he threatens to shatter the glass floor of a rooftop pool, then follows through when Mishka refuses to talk. Mishka plunges to his death as the pool floods the street. Charlie escapes amid a chaotic chase, while two CIA agents end up fighting in a laundry room—with a washing machine becoming part of the brawl.

The CIA eventually closes in on Charlie and Inquiline. They flee through a hidden tunnel and evade a drone, but Inquiline is mortally wounded during the pursuit. Charlie is left to continue alone, carrying on the mission they planned together.

Charlie tricks Lawrence into meeting by posing as an arms dealer. He corners him with a bomb and demands Horst’s location. Lawrence gives him the information, but Charlie leaves before the bomb detonates.

When Charlie finally faces Horst aboard a yacht, he cannot bring himself to shoot him either. Instead, he hacks the yacht’s controls—systems he helped design—and redirects it into the hands of Finnish authorities and Interpol. Horst and his crew are arrested, and O’Brien later announces the arrest of CIA personnel involved in illegal operations.

Charlie’s revenge is ultimately less about becoming an assassin than using his brain to bring the people responsible to justice. After visiting Sarah’s grave, he returns home and finally takes the plane she gave him for a spin.

Notable Moments

• Charlie’s talent for bomb-making contrasted with his terrible aim.
• The suspicious ABBA CD hiding the evidence he left behind.
• Charlie’s increasingly elaborate traps.
• His repeated inability to kill someone at close range.

Characters

• Charlie
• Sarah
• Chief Moore
• Director O’Brien
• Supervisor Caleb
• Colonel Henderson
• Inquiline
• Mishka
• Lawrence
• Horst
• Gretchen