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"brilliantly plotted post-Cold War thriller"

What can I say, but "wow!" This book starts off at a run and proceeds to an all-out-race-to-the-finish.

Major Val McIntyre is a woman trying to succeed in a man's world. So far, she's accomplished quite a lot, but what she would really like is a command of her own. She didn't expect it to be in a place like the Infernesk Technical Center, located in the middle-of-nowhere Russia.

Infernesk, now a little piece of the US of A in a former Soviet state, is a huge facility, most of it underground. This remnant of the Cold War is now a repository for Russia's nuclear weapons, sent to the facility from former Soviet states to be destroyed. The Russian Mafiya smelling profit in selling said weapons to terrorists and terrorist wanna-bes uses contacts in the Russian military in an attempt to steal the nukes. So far the United States, acting illegally on Russian soil, have managed to keep the weapons out of enemy hands, but the situation is getting more and more dangerous every day.

Val is sent to Infernesk to put order into the messed up destruction program so as to cut off the supply. When she arrives, she finds she has inherited a deadly mess.

Todd Stone has written a brilliantly plotted, fast-paced story about the post-Cold War world. A simple review can not do this book justice. If you like the action- thrillers of Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler or Jack Debruhl, you'll love this book. What really impressed me was Val and the other women in her unit. These ladies can kick some enemy butt!

Moni Draper for PNR Reviews
Moni Draper aka Monette Michaels, Author

Reviewed by Moni Draper
Posted February 21, 2004

When a Washington power-play gone wrong puts a nuclear arsenal in a secret terrorist organization's back yard, US Army Major Valerie Macintyre and a band of third-string soldiers become the only obstacle between a legion of biotech-enhanced fanatics and an isolated depot crammed with atomic munitions. Val must build a fighting force from combat-clueless technicians, a sexist brown-boot Army veteran, a wet-behind- the-ears Second Lieutenant, and a manipulative military cop. Then she must lead them in an all-or-nothing battle against a terrorist leader driven mad by ambition.

The vicious firefights that follow are fought not with smart bombs and satellites, but with bullets and bayonets. Male or female, officer or lowly grunt, no quarter is asked and none given.

And in a tunnel below them all, a warhead's detonator counts down the seconds until Armageddon.