The Icarus Agenda - Tapa dura

When his part in the settlement of a hostage crisis is revealed, congressman Evan Kendrick becomes the pawn of those who wish to make him president and the target of terrorists seeking revenge

gressman Evan Kendrick is trying to live out his term of office quietly--when a political mole reveals to the world Kendrick's deepest secret...that Kendrick was the anonymous man in Masqar, the man who courageously freed the hostage held in the American embassy by Arab terrorists;
the unknown hero who performed an act of outrageous daring then silently disappeared.  Now, suddenly, Kendrick is a living target pursued by the terrorists he outwitted.  Together with the beautiful woman who once saved his life, Kendrick enters a deadly arena where the only currency is blood, where frightened whispers speak of violence yet to come and where Kendrick's life--and the fate of the free world--may ultimately rest in the powerful hands of a mysterious and deadly figure known only as the Mahdi.
From the Paperback edition.