Public Enemy

About this book

W. Cooper didnt choose the British Virgin Islands as his CIA post because he hoped it would help further his career in espionagehe chose it for an opportunity to "live slow." So Cooper is not entirely pleased when his routine of debauchery is interrupted by a request from the local chief of police asking for Coopers unique expertise to help him sell what appears to be millions of dollars in gold artifacts his men have seized from a smuggler. Cooper doesnt see a significant downsideuntil everyone connected to the artifacts begins dying from causes decidedly unnatural. In Langley Virginia brilliant but abrasive CIA analyst Julie Laramie is pulled from her normal duties to attend a clandestine meeting with a legend in the intelligence game. Investigators have discovered the first case of a suicide bombing by an American citizen within the continental United States. The bombing was augmented by the dispersal of a highly contagious bioengineered pathogen something the government has concealed in an effort to prevent a nationwide panic. Laramie is dispatched to the site of the attack by her mysterious new employers as a "special investigator " but begins to suspect that the "suicide sleeper" isnt merely an isolated incident but a premature attack by one of a legion of similar soldiers. With little time to spare Laramie is allowed to form her "counterterror unit" working outside the normal channels. For the role of an experienced operations asset Laramie finds she has little choice but to approach her old palnone other than Cooper. As the suicide sleeper detonation approaches T minus zero it becomes horrifyingly clear that Amer-icas newest enemy will be all but impossible to stopunless that is Laramies puzzle-solving acumen and the aging beach bum of an operative shes recruited to the cause can turn the tables on the "king of the sleepers" and spare America its worst disaster in history.