Lone Wolves

The novel is a fictional account of a terrorist event that might have preceded the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. It all begins with the successful terrorist attack on the America warship, USS Cole, in Aden harbor, Yemen. Information comes to the attention of the planner of that attack that there might be a device for mass destruction - maybe more than one - on American and British soil. They had been secretly buried by the Soviet Union during the Cold War to be used if the Cold War escalated in a hot war. Frank Burnham, fresh from events in Zimbabwe where he foiled a plot to explode the world's first dirty bomb, is in the thick of things again. This time he is coerced into going into Chechnya to find a formed Soviet Spetsnaz officer who might know the location of a small nuclear device close to Washington, D.C. and London. He had been on the Soviet Diplomatic Mission in both countries and was responsible for locating suitable locations for the devices. A Chechen by birth, he has gone over to the terrorist group al-Qaeda and has agreed to return to the United Kingdom and the United States to try to retrieve the devices for al-Qaeda. He isn't sure that they are still there, but he is determined to find out. The American Intelligence community thinks this former Spetsnaz officer is dead, but the British think he is alive. Frank Burnham had met this Chechen during his days working for the arms dealer Arab Eagle. He finds the man in Chechnya, but his mission is just to determine that he is alive. British and American Intelligence want him alive to learn the details of the plot to use the devices. Of course Frank would prefer to just kill the man. The Chechen, Vasili Shomov, leaves Chechnya and heads for London. He eludes capture there and lays a deadly trap for the British. He escapes the United Kingdom and eventually heads for the United States, via Mexico. But there is also an American casualty in London; Frank's cousin Marc Burnham. Marc is now a Lieutenant Colonel in the American Army currently attached to MI5, the British Secret Intelligence Service. When Frank was on the way to Chechnya, he had to travel through Dagestan. He runs into trouble. An important Russian Mafia figure is killed as well as some Russian Military Border Guards. Now both are after Frank Burnham. Vasili Shomov is a problem for the West, but Frank has to deal with the vengeful Russian Mafia and the Russian military. Frank deals with the Russian Mafia in his normal deadly style, but the Russian military is a harder nut to crack. He ends up pursuing Vasili Shomov himself, with help from the Russians who also want him dead for their own reasons. Things come to a head in the forests of the Shenandoah National Forest. But what Frank doesn't know is that there are others out there who also want to put a bullet in his head.