Volcano

Volcano, Rosa Turner Knapp, Pulsar Books, 2001

In this sequel to Force of Fire, Ana Kane and Mark Neal are now husband and wife. Mark is still active in the intelligence field in Washington, working for one of those agencies about which the public knows nothing, while Ana stays home to be a full-time mother. Ana has recently been going through a period of mental fogginess, like leaving doors open and losing her keys, more than once. The stress between Ana and Mark has started to affect their marriage. Ana asks her father, Albert Kane, a senior member of US
intelligence, for a simple, low-level assignment so she can show Mark that she hasn't totally lost her mind.

This "simple"assignment gets Ana kidnapped by a group of Chinese terrorists. Meantime, reports come in about people all over the country suddenly up and quitting their jobs, and heading home fearing for the safety of their families. They all suffered some sort of minor computer glitch just beforehand. This "glitch," much more than a computer virus, has even hit the supposedly impenetrable computers of the Defense Operations Service (DOS), of which Mark is a senior member, causing most of the staff to leave.

It seems that during the height of the Cold War, a secret US plan was hatched which only three people knew about (Albert Kane was one of them) to destabilize communist societies from the inside. Au Yang was supposedly killed by the Chinese Secret Service several years previously. Tom Mooney, now a US Ambassador in Central America, seems to be helping a group of Chinese and Middle Eastern terrorists use the plan on the US. When the people of America clamor for a strong leader to save them, he will be perfectly placed to accept the "burden of leadership". The plan's crowning moment will be a
terrorist attack on New Year's Eve 2001 celebrations in Washington. After all, one year after Y2K, everyone's guard will be down.

This is another excellent novel from Ms. Knapp. She knows her way around Washington, the story is plausible with good characters, and, for political junkies like me, it's more than juicy enough. Highly recommended.