From Publishers Weekly
Just about everything goes wrong for the good guys in this sometimes rousing but woodenly written thriller of nuclear warfare. As five nuclear warheads stolen from Russia menace the U.S., a group of CIA operatives and assorted helpers, including Israeli agent Tovi "Sandman" Hersch and ex-CIA counterterrorism agent Laurence "Friar" Clarke, race against time to locate and destroy the rogue weapons. They are too late to save southern Manhattan, however, and the debacle fulfills 16th-century Nostradamus's prophecy that a "Great New City" would be destroyed via a nuclear explosion at the end of the millennium. The president's national security director, aptly named Bastardi, makes a major power grab with a high-tech arsenal. By climax time, the mountains of North Carolina are swarming with agents, counteragents, spies, politicians and weapons of various lethalities. Jack Ryan-esque protagonist Clark could credibly be the superhero of his own series (indeed, Powell intends this as the first book in a trilogy on "the dangers facing the U.S. from... weapons of mass destruction"). Although Powell occasionally fails to follow up promising subplot leads (e.g., the aftereffects of New York's devastation), this is an entertaining enough escapist read.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From the Inside Flap
When they want proof they will look to the Normans. line 4, Quatrain 97, Century VI. Heavily sedated and strapped to a soiled gurney in Lubyanka's grimy interrogation center, General Nicolai Kuzov, head of nuclear security for Russia's Twelfth Main Directorate, mumbles a deathbed confession. Six days later, in the fading light of a waning moon, a diesel Kilo sub surfaces off the coast of North Carolina. Five thermonuclear warheads are winched aboard the shrimp trawler, Break of Dawn.
The Antagonist: In charge of the brutally efficient organizatsiya controlling the warheads is Alexander Dubov, a dangerously innovative Chechen syndicate leader who plans on waging a new style nuclear blitzkrieg against the Great Satan. His goal is to plunge the US into chaos while blackmailing Washington into stepping aside while his rogue state sponsor attacks its neighbor.
The Hunter: Recruited by Bryan Warner, an old friend from the clandestine side of the Company, Friar Clarke, ex-CIA legend and master web-weaver, sets out to penetrate the smoke screen of false leads and decoys so cleverly cobbled together by the Chechen. An outspoken critic of bureaucratic ineptitude, Friar finds himself embroiled in a diversionary confrontation with Bruce Bastardi, the President's National Security Adviser, who is trying to implement an agenda of his own.
