Allah's Scorpion

Read Allah's Scorpion Storyline:

Under the cover of a moonless night, al-Quaida operatives made their way inside the infamous Camp Delta prison on the American base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Their goal was to free five prisoners. But their attempt fails. The rescuers and prisoners, all former Iranian Navy submarine crewmen, were all killed. Their freedom was to be the first step in unleashing a deadly act of terrorism--a mission codenamed Allah's Scorpion.The CIA and Kirk McGarvey are called in, but first McGarvey must stop the destruction of the Panama Canal by a Venezuelan oil tanker rigged to explode in one of the locks. What seems to be an unrelated attack turns up the same cryptic code name.But this mission may prove to be the ultimate strike against America, a grand finale to what began on 9/11. A pair of Russian nuclear warhead missiles that were spirited into Lybia just before the invasion of Iraq have turned up on the radar, and they are in transit by sea to a undisclosed launch site in the Atlantic Ocean. Once again, Kirk McGarvey is the only man in the position to stop them--the only man capable of knocking out Allah's Scorpion.From Publishers WeeklyAt the vivid start of Hagberg's latest thriller to feature former CIA director Kirk McGarvey, al-Qaeda terrorists attack Camp Echo—the part of the U.S. base at Guantánamo where detainees deemed to be harmless are held while their release is arranged—and help some of these prisoners escape. It appears that Osama bin Laden is putting together a crew of naval experts to pull off an attack on a seaport on America's West Coast that will dwarf even the horrors of 9/11. As McGarvey, who comes out of retirement, and a tough, sexy Cuban-born CIA agent, Gloria Ibenez, prepare to fight off what al-Qaeda has code-named Allah's Scorpion, Hagberg (Soldier of God) once again displays his wide and deep inside knowledge of intelligence and military tradecraft—including details of how Osama and his men hide from American spy satellites. Too many tongue-twisting names of weapons and equipment might slow down the action for some readers, but the full thrust of the narrative soon takes on a life of its own. (Jan.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistWhen the U.S. discovers that a series of apparently unrelated terrorist activities may be connected by a mysterious code phrase, "Allah's Scorpion," former CIA director Kirk McGarvey is called back into action. Soon he is hot on the trail of a couple of hijacked nuclear missiles that could fuel a terrorist strike on U.S. soil bigger than 9/11. Hagberg's muscular thriller moves too fast for such subtleties as elegant dialogue or stylish narrative, but what it lacks in finesse it makes up for in sheer, breathless enthusiasm. Fans of the author's slick international thrillers (The Kill Zone, 2002) will find no surprises here, but they probably aren't looking for any. David PittCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved