Book Description

We all know about the Russian hacking of the 2016 US election—but what if the Russians had something bigger in the works? Russian investigative reporter Nikolai Katkov grew up under the Soviet regime and came of age as a journalist during the Cold War. The rumpled chain smoker no longer drinks, but he’s devoted to truth, justice, and the American way; he considers his collection of comic books his pension. He and his colleague Nina Grafinskaya have always been highly critical of Putin and his corrupt cronies, so it’s no surprise, though still tragic, when Grafinskaya is terminated by a Kremlin assassin after publishing an article revealing the dirty deals of Putin’s inner circle. When her FBI contact is discovered in the trunk of his car with a slit throat, Katkov takes over Grafinskaya’s unfinished story about a Russian mole placed high within the US federal security apparatus. Are the two stories connected? Katkov thinks so and becomes a target himself when he heads to Washington, DC, to follow up. In DC, FBI special agent and Amtrak liaison to the Joint Terrorism Task Force Lana Nichols is implementing a major upgrade to the railroad’s computer security. Nichols, a sexy, young cyberterrorism expert, lands the assignment of babysitting Katkov, who attracts Russian thugs and hit men like a magnet. Katkov begins to understand the Russians’ plot isn’t about protecting the mole, but rather protecting a Code Red op about to go live. The Russians have been playing the long game to destabilize America—and now all the pieces are finally in place. Katkov suspects Lana Nichols—American born but ethnically Russian—is the mole. Her cover blown, she goes off the grid, leaving a path of cold death in her wake. The plot? A railroad bridge, over which freight trains laden with volatile chemicals must travel to continue their journey up the Eastern Seaboard, lies within spitting distance of the Capitol. And with only hours to go before the State of the Union address, the clock is ticking louder than ever. But what’s the plan? How is she going to do it? And can they stop her in time?