In this riveting CIA espionage fiction, Al Qaeda terrorists loyal to Ayman al-Zawahiri seek for and find a retired Russian colonel who is willing to sell them a portable tactical nuclear weapon. They are then faced with the seemingly insurmountable task of transporting the bomb in stealth and secrecy to a destination in the West, preferably in the United States. Kate Langley -- an attractive, young and ambitious CIA officer based in Pakistan -- puts her life on the line to preclude AQ from pulling off this horrific terror event. And now this taut nuclear espionage spy thriller quickly evolves into a race against time set on three continents.
The CIA spy thriller opens in the tension-fraught days in May 2011 right after SEAL Team Six invaded Abbottabad, Pakistan, to deal ruthlessly with OBL. Kate Langley is tethered to a desk at the American Embassy in Islamabad, longing for more dangerous work in the field. Though she had little to do with the SEAL actions in Abbottabad, Kate finds herself "PNG'd" by the Pakistani Foreign Ministry -- declared persona non grata in the euphemistic language of diplomacy -- for "activities incompatible with diplomatic status," code words for having been outed as a spy.
With Langley back in Washington, it soon becomes apparent in this Al Qaeda terror thriller that something far worse than 9/11 is now on the drawing boards and that Zawahri's conspiracy against the human race is on an accelerated timetable of revenge for OBL's martyrdom.
Kate gets wind of Al Qaeda's purchase of a 17-kiloton portable nuclear weapon, a small device by the standards of hydrogen bombs, but more than enough to vaporize everything within a one-mile radius of the detonation. Set off in Manhattan, this weapon could kill millions, flatten skyscrapers, and set New York City aflame.
Motivated by a desire to help her country -- and more than a little personal ambition -- Kate Langley soon finds herself in this tale of CIA espionage fiction back in South Asia, this time not as part of the coddled staff of an American Embassy, with perks, diplomatic status, and a safety net of Marine guards, but this time as a NOC, or "knock," spy-speak for a CIA agent under "non-official cover." If caught, Kate will have no legal protection whatever. But she is a girl who can live by her wits and she is adept at spying in high heels.
From Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, Kate Langley is soon on the trail of Yasser Khalidi Al-Greeb, the AQ mastermind in this CIA spy thriller who is behind the acquisition of the nuclear weapon. With her dashing, sometime ally, Pakistani Brigadier Mahmood Mahmood, Kate tracks the weapon from Moscow to Tashkent to Karachi. Here Al-Greeb gets the weapon aboard a ship smuggled in an Intermodal Shipping Container headed for the Port of Long Beach, California. Once it is in the United States, it will be unstoppable.
This is a nuclear espionage spy thriller as contemporary as tomorrow's headlines, as frightening as 9/11, and as compelling and exciting as any of the best CIA espionage and spy thrillers on the market today.