For the last two years, the author has been investigating the secret funding of the Contras by the White House. Here, she identifies the network of National Security Council staff (led by Colonel Oliver North), CIA operatives and ex-agents who set up this illegal support system, after the passage of the Boland Amendment in October 1984 made it illegal for the US government to give direct and indirect aid to the Contras. There is a detailed account of how mercenaries were recruited from all over the world and sent to CIA-run training bases in Costa Rica; how money was obtained through various means, ranging from the Iran arms deal to an arrangement with cocaine smugglers bringing drugs into Florida in return for quarterly payments into Contra bank accounts; how guns were procured, flown to US-controlled military bases in Central America, and then delivered into the hands of the Contras. The author, a British journalist, has worked for CBS News since 1978.