In Thailand, two men hire a pair of international pirates to smuggle them, a small team of mercenaries, and some equipment aboard a freighter at a Russian port. It's frighteningly easy, and the ship sails east, toward the western coast of North America.

 

The crew onboard the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Sojourner Truth, stationed in the Bering Sea along the Maritime Boundary Line, is busier than usual, catching fishing vessels on the wrong side of the line, but it's not enough to cause undue alarm.

In Washington, D.C., a CIA analyst has been hearing rumors about the sale of radioactive material and military equipment on the black market in deep Russia but can't get it confirmed.

 

The analyst, Hugh Rincon, originally from Alaska and more keenly aware than most in Washington of Alaska's vulnerability with its air force base and proximity to the Far East, begins to piece it all together. He can't get anyone to take him seriously, however, least of all the director of the CIA.

 

Then Hugh learns that his estranged wife, Sarah Lange, is second in command on the Sojourner Truth in the Bering Sea at the heart of the potential conflict. And the chase is on.

 

The first stand-alone thriller from the pen of Dana Stabenow, Edgar Award--winning author of seventeen crime novels, delivers a nail-biting, action-packed read, international in scope and frighteningly real.