MAJOR WILL MORGAN is a 15-year veteran of the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Command (ACIC) at Fort Meade. Will leads the Army's most elite and unconventional CI team - an unyielding taskmaster with a sharp mind and a loyal heart. His life is the mission.
As the global race for space supremacy escalates, the U.S. stands at a crossroads. Rivals like Russia and China are pouring resources into militarizing space. Russia's latest threat: a nuclear-powered, space-based anti-satellite system capable of disabling America's satellites via electromagnetic pulses -jeopardizing everything from missile defense to communications.
DARPA, "the Pentagon's brain," has quietly launched a Space Superiority Initiative to counter the threat. But when the CIA's deep - cover mole in Moscow transmits a classified DARPA document suggesting a Russian mole embedded within a top defense subcontractor, panic ensues.
The Pentagon assigns Will and his team to lead the most critical counterintelligence investigation of their careers. The mole must be found-and fast. The order is clear: No limit on resources. No margin for error.
As Will assembles his team, including DEREK WILSHIRE, an Asperger's-diagnosed mathematical savant with a genius for patterns and encryption, the CIA intercepts a second Russian document. This one suggests the space system may already be compromised. Derek confirms the worst: the mole has access to DARPA's most sensitive files.
The investigation quickly narrows to three lead physicists - all brilliant, all deeply embedded. The pressure intensifies as the team races to expose the traitor. But the truth is even more dangerous: the mole is a double agent, protected by the FBI.
Just as the net tightens, U.S. Space Command confirms the unthinkable-a Russian killer satellite has destroyed one of America's retired satellites in orbit. The system works. The U.S. declares a Dark Sky alert. Space is now an active warzone.
In a last-ditch effort to slow Russia and buy DARPA time to respond, Will's team launches a bold countermeasure: using the FBI double agent to feed disinformation back to the Russians, sending their program into disarray. The move buys precious time as DARPA races to deploy a leapfrog defense.
But the cost is high, and the clock is ticking.
Wayne, Charles: -
Charles Wayne's debut novel is a spellbinding space spy thriller rooted in today's high-technology battle for command of the new frontier.
Wayne's background as a Wall Street executive and entrepreneur over the last half-century gave him a ringside view of the massive technological innovations transforming the Street from clubby partnerships to a huge strip of undercapitalized casinos run not by owners but hired gunslingers. All made possible by massive computer power and black box models not widely understood.
This transformation is not dissimilar to the change of our national security agencies over the same period. Once the province of index card code breakers and gumshoe spies national security now relies on computing and data storage of unimaginable magnitude.
A frighteningly small number of managers understand and control both paradigms.
Radiant Sentry shows how a small group of talented army counterintelligence agents prevent secrets from being stolen.
