State Scarlet

When a caller tells the White House he has stolen a U.S. nuclear device and will set it off in a major European city, nobody panics. The president sees it as a chance to check the security of the nuclear weapons system; the National Security Advisor sees it as a chance to go one-up in his bureaucratic feuds - it's a useful crank call.Except that is isn't a crank call. A nuclear device really has been stolen, and it really will go off. And with that knowledge, all hell breaks loose. The hawks blame the Russians. The Russians threaten back. The U.S. goes on military alert. The Russians cancel military leaves. Top agents on both sides comb Europe for the bomb, missing time and again.

Involved in government and intelligence for over a decade, and a participant in the SALT I and SALT II negotiations, Aaron knows what he is writing about. This taut and compelling first novel is terrifying in its credibility. The number of cities in the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. have long been eclipsed by the number of nuclear weapons both sides possess. Of the thousands of atomic bombs in the world, one finally finds its way into the hands of a deluded terrorist, a mistreated former CIA operative with connections to the Soviets. The bomb is an American one, and the threat is that a major European city will be destroyed if the U.S. does not immediately pull out of Europe. We follow the hunt for the terrorist by an American-Russian team, and the escalation of the situation until the world teeters on the brink of war. Meanwhile, the two nations' leaders desperately look for a way to stop their cabinet hawks from initiating a first strike. It is not just the overwhelming number of weapons, but political expediency and incompetent management that will propel us to Armageddon, suggests Aarons. This harrowing story tells how it is and chillingly predicts how it possiblyor probablywill be. The world would do well to take heed. Literary Guild alternate.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.