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.
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.
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.
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.
This story has lost cities, buried treasure, and danger lurking just beyond the horizon.
Elise Cooper: Were you in the military?
Alex Dekker: I spent 20 years in the army, pretty much all of that in special operations. I was a Green Beret for almost 20 years, and so I spent the first half of my career at Faith Special Forces Group. I’ve spent a lot of time in the Middle East, and I can speak Arabic. Because I spent a lot of time in the region and with the culture, the characters are made up of kind of conglomerations of different people that I served with.
EC: How did you come up with the story?
AD: Since I was a kid, I’ve just always loved history and I have one hobby. Reading and research and history is what I do for fun. So, I kind of took what I know, which is special operations and combined it with what I love, which is history, to write this story.
EC: How would you generally describe the characters?
AD: I guess 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.
EC: Is the story influenced by Indiana Jones?
AD: For sure. 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.
EC: Can you describe the legend of the Lost City in Yemen?
AD: The Lost City of Ubar aka Iram of the Pillars is in the Arabian Desert. The idea is that there was the city sitting on the ancient trade routes where it was the only major hub within a far distance. It’s where all the trade caravans would go to rest and get water. It accumulated a lot of wealth. What happens is the people become so decadent and wicked that basically, God tells them to change their ways. He sends the prophet Hud to tell them to change their ways. They don’t. And so, as the legend goes, the city is struck from above and sinks below the sands. This one is not grounded in oral traditions, but it’s mentioned in the Quran. It’s mentioned in tales like One Thousand and One Nights also known as Arabian Nights. There’s context there, a lot of world history. People like Bertram Thomas or Harry St. John Philby or T. E. Lawrence all believed that the city existed and many of them believed it so much that they went out on expeditions looking for it.
EC: How is it different than other Lost City Stories?
AD: I think it differs in a couple of ways. Like I said, it’s all kind of grounded in real history. 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.
EC: How would you describe Nate?
AD: He was 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.
EC: Is there any of you in Nate?
AD: 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.
EC: How would you describe Ana?
AD: She plays an intricate role in the story. There’s a lot of different parts to Anna. She’s smart, she’s brilliant, she’s very good at what she does. She cares about her family, cares about her father. So, when her father goes missing, she’s willing to move heaven and earth to try to find him. She gets wrapped up in the plot as well because her father unwittingly had some of the keys to Nate’s research as well, but it’s also something that the bad guys are looking for. As a person who has no background in the military or dangerous situations or whatever, she holds her own and not only holds her own, but her knowledge base as a geologist and in particular hydrology becomes a critical piece to Nate’s research.
EC: Next book?
AD: It continues the adventures of Nate. It will come out summer 2027. I’m working on it right now. The setting is in a different part of the world, bigger part of the world that Nate is less familiar with, so he needs to contend with that. A lot of the same characters kind of are put in in a fun and unique way. It continues to follow the trajectory as the whole series will do, that there’s more to our history than we understand and Nate is on a path of discovering that.
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