The Silver Serpent (Ben Hope 25) by Scott Mariani

Some legends lie buried for a reason…
To fight extraordinary odds, you need an extraordinary man.
Under the fierce heat of the Australian outback, the laws of nature serve a rough justice. When a man vanishes deep in the Northern Territory, local police write it off. But his family suspect otherwise – and when the call for help goes out, Ben Hope and Jeff Decker are there to hear it.
Ben’s instincts, honed by years of Special Forces missions, soon see the story told by a trail of bullet casings, rumours of a missing map and a lethal cocktail of greed, power and money.
This savagely beautiful land holds a secret it won’t give up easily – and for Ben, discovering the truth will mean not only going up against a small army of hired guns and their twisted paymaster, but also surviving a place where the wilderness is as powerful as the weapons his enemies have trained on him.