The terrorist group, Genesis, is introduced in the first couple pages as they take the New York electrical grid off the map. But, that event is only a mechanism to bring attention to the group. It isn't until the State of the Union address eight months later that they boldly attack. While the President, the Vice-President, the Cabinet, Congressional members, and the Supreme Court were all in the Capitol, Genesis struck. The sound of breaking glass, and television screens across the county going black were the first indications that something was wrong. But, when President James Allaire, who was also a medical doctor, saw the note on the teleprompter saying Genesis had released the WRX3883 virus, he knew everyone in the building was in trouble. He understood that the situation was deadly, and he locked down the Capitol, with orders to shoot anyone who tried to escape.
Then, President Allaire reached out to the last man he wanted to, Griffin Rhodes. Griff has been locked up for nine months in a supermaximum federal penitentiary in Colorado,where he's been in solitary confinement. The virologist was arrested as a terrorist, and thrown in prison without a hearing when five vials of WRX3883 went missing, and Rhodes was the primary suspect. Now, Allaire knows the researcher is his only hope for finding an antidote to the virus before everyone in the Capitol dies.
The tension builds as Griff and a Washington Post science reporter race against time, and Genesis, hoping to pull off a miracle before people die, or the President loses his mental capacities, a side effect of the virus. Who can really be trusted in a struggle for power and control, as well as people's lives?
Immerse yourself in Michael Palmer's A Heartbeat Away for a riveting story, a warning of what happens when power and scientific investigations end up in the wrong hands.
(And, check back this evening for details as to how you can win your own autographed copy of A Heartbeat Away.)
Michael Palmer's website is MichaelPalmerBooks.com.
A Heartbeat Away by Michael Palmer. St. Martin's Press, ©2011. ISBN 9780312587529 (hardcover), 416p.
*****
FTC Full Disclosure - The author sent me a copy of the book, hoping I would review it.
