Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
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(CP) - Hugh and Sara are still very much in love. But they've just never been able to make their marriage work.
He's a security analyst who rides a desk at the CIA in Washington, she's the executive officer on a U.S. Coast Guard cutter that patrols the maritime boundary line in the Bering Sea between Russia and Alaska. Once in a while their paths cross, and they tear each other's clothes off in a hotel rendezvous.
But they're dedicated to their respective professions too much for one to give up a career for the other.
As fate would have it, though, a terrorist scenario is about to intervene that will bring them together in a struggle to avoid a dirty-bomb attack on Anchorage and nearby Elmendorf Air Force Base.
Hugh's far-flung agents uncover evidence of a plot by some North Koreans to acquire both a modified Scud missile and a deadly amount of radioactive material, with Alaska the suggested target. But his boss at the CIA isn't convinced, so Hugh moves out from behind his desk and makes a rare venture into the field on his own.
When he lands by helicopter on board Sara's ship he has more difficulty convincing both wife and crew that a freighter, one of the thousands that ply those waters and sail into Anchorage harbour, is bearing terrorists and their ready-to-launch weapon. Then the cutter, while routinely pulling over a fishing vessel for an inspection boarding, comes under deadly fire - an attack that takes out all their communications equipment.
From there, Alaska native Dana Stabenow employs both her narrative skills and a hefty amount of maritime and coast guard background knowledge to deliver an effective race-against-time thriller. Hugh, Sara and the cutter crew, now on their own, try to figure out which ship is the decoy and which is the real danger. And all this, of course, during a raging storm at sea.
© The Canadian Press, 2006
