Desert Heist
Nate Wilde Series Book 1
Alex Dekker
Atria/Emily Bestler Books
July 2026
Desert Heist by Alex Dekker is part military thriller, part archaeological adventure, and part historical mystery. Alex Dekker served as a member of the United States Army Special Forces Green Berets for nearly twenty years and has incorporated his experiences into the story.
He wrote the characters as “multi-layered. On its surface, there’s some former special operators essentially going on this archaeological expedition for a lost city. The characters are made up of kind of conglomerations of different people that I served with. Put together, they are different shades of lots of different people. They are not a one-dimensional kind of shoot them up action type character. The characters are going through what a lot of veterans go through, which is, leaving the military and losing their camaraderie along with a sense of purpose. They’re all looking for that in their lives, which is what brings them for various reasons together and gets them pulled into this journey.”
The plot has the main character leaving the military after a catastrophic deployment that ended with most of his team dead or injured, with him choosing to pursue his passion for history. When his dissertation proposal to search for the legendary lost city of Ubar in Saudi Arabia is rejected by the Harvard examining committee and his expedition permit is denied by the Saudi government, Nate resolves to continue his research by any means necessary. And the only path left to him is to enter Saudi Arabia’s Empty Quarter through war-torn Yemen, the same sands where his brothers lost their lives years ago.
The story is influenced by Indiana Jones. The author noted, “I love Indiana Jones. I wanted to be an archaeologist. I’ve always loved historical adventure, with that sense of high adventure, going on this journey. The expedition that has high stakes that are real but the thing about Indiana Jones is it’s a fun ride. I wanted Desert Heist to be a fun ride, but to differ from the Indiana Jones movies. It was twofold. One, it was grounded with of some of my real experiences in the military. But two, I wanted to ground the history and stuff that’s real as well. It’s going to lead readers back to a historical fact that hopefully makes it very difficult to tell where the facts stop and the fiction starts.”
Knowing he’s going back into harm’s way, Nate turns to the only men left alive that he truly trusts—Sergeant Benjamin “Wally” Walton, a medic formerly with the British Special Air Service; Shane Price, UFC fighter turned Green Beret and an affluent playboy; and Sergeant Tim McBride, Nate’s former best friend and a true warrior. Along the way the group meets Ana Metry, a geologist of Egyptian heritage searching for her missing father, whose research is key to Nate’s quest.
“I wrote Nate to be raised in kind of an academic environment. Plus, the effects from 9/11 influenced him as a child, having the call to serve. He’s one of those people that’s very driven, so it led him joining the Special Forces. He always loved that history, never forgot about it. He loses a lot of friends and kind of has trouble rectifying that, so he leaves the military and he searches out his other passion in life, which is history. He discovers it’s not so easy to transition and just jump from one career to the other, and he finds himself being pulled back to kind of that more adventurous lifestyle. Nate, is a Green Beret, a warrior. I like to call him a warrior scholar. He could handle himself in a fistfight or a firefight, but his true strength and his true superpower is his intellect. His mind really is his greatest weapon. And it’s his ability to think through things, to make connections other people don’t make and to see things that other people don’t see, that really makes him ultimately successful. We share a similar background. We share some similar passions, maybe some personality traits. So, there’s reflections of me in Nate, but I wouldn’t say he is completely me.”
Hunted by a former Spetsnaz soldier who works for a shadowy organization with unknown goals, and chased through the desert by al Qaeda terrorists, the former commandos must utilize the skills of their past profession in a race to discover whether the city truly exists, as well as uncover a deeper geopolitical mystery with resounding global ramifications.
“I’m a big fan, and have been for a long time of Dan Brown. As with him, I really wanted to have the case for the book that there was so much history and so much real history that it makes it plausible. The 2nd thing, I think that makes it different, is that the characters that are going on this adventure, have accomplished things, whether it’s winning a fire fight with Al Qaeda terrorists and others.”
This story has lost cities, buried treasure, and danger lurking just beyond the horizon.
