Terminal

Leifer (The Myths of Modern Medicine) makes his fiction debut with this suspenseful and alarming kickoff to a trilogy. Cmdr. John Hart has an impressive resume. A former Navy Seal with degrees in medicine and nuclear engineering, he officially works with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and is part of the counterterrorism team that addresses the threat of bioweapons. He faces his greatest challenge when Ibrahim Almasi al-Bakr, the founder of the United Islamic State, sets a diabolical plan in motion to devastate the U.S., making use of a “virus of unimaginable destructive power.” Al-Bakr intends to target America’s four busiest air terminals with the highly contagious disease, which was developed as part of a covert Soviet biowarfare program. Hart’s desperate efforts to avert disaster are aided by his colleague and former lover, Elizabeth Wilkins, a senior scientist with the Centers for Disease Control. While the overall plotline isn’t new, Leifer, who has served on a presidential panel headed by former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, makes the details plausible. [em](BookLife) [/em]