Where Tall Trees Grow

Sage Collins is a tiny woman of five-feet three-inches. She is knocked about most of her life. The one anchor she has is her father, a Marine captain. He is killed when she is nine years old, setting her life adrift. Her mother is too busy with her friends to bother with the kid. Sage runs away and joins the Marines when she is 15. They discover her true age and kick her out. She lives on the streets of Los Angeles selling the only commodity she has to buy drugs until she realizes that she will not live long on the streets.
She goes home to Arcata, California, by freight train and tries to gain control of her life. She gets a GED high school diploma and enters the only school that will have her-a divinity college, where she excels in languages. Still trying to following in her father's footsteps, she enters the Naval Academy only to be kicked out months later. That's when she comes to the attention of the CIA. Her small size and language skills make her perfect to be an undercover agent in Saudi Arabia.
The CIA trains her in languages and undercover-agent skills that include assassinations. She falls in love with a Saudi Prince where she is working undercover as a servant. It's the first time in her life that any man has interested her, but the relationship is short lived when she is ordered to assassinate someone close to the Prince following the 9/11 attacks on America. After escaping from Saudi Arabia with her life, she thinks that is the end of it, but the Saudi Crown Prince sends Colonel Al-Dali after her to bring back her head.
He searches first in Israel thinking she is a Mossad agent, but the determined Colonel Al-Dali finally arrives on American soil. He kills anyone blocking his path to find Sage.