Power Transfer: A fast moving thriller.

A series of events involving intense fires shook the United States. At first it seemed as though they were acts of terrorism that were part of normal life in some other countries particularly in the Middle East. These included attacks on civilian aircraft, road bridges, shipping, car production, electricity supplies and oil refineries which while worrying for the general public were not perceived as a direct threat to daily life. Because of the size of the country they always seemed to be happening somewhere else. When these attacks switched in their thousands to supermarkets, multi-story car parks and other ‘soft’ targets the general public became more concerned. They started hoarding food, avoided going to work and became involved in civil unrest; at this point the economic situation became serious. It brought the financial markets and the country to its knees, the power of the government was severely limited.
The resources of all the intelligence agencies were not making any progress; it was assumed that the acts of terrorism were being conducted by a group of foreign terrorists. They seemed undetectable and the FBI and the CIA couldn’t understand how the fire making material was being brought into the country in such large quantities.
The situation changed rapidly when Carl ‘Scotty’ Scott, a Washington homicide detective, became involved by pure chance. He reasoned that both the perpetrators and their materials were a home grown threat. He appeared to be making progress but not soon enough. The financial markets were in serious trouble and the country’s top economists couldn’t provide a solution. Salvation came from an unlikely source, trading partners across the globe sensed that a badly damaged United States was not in their interests. They invested trillions of dollars from their bulging coffers that had been built up from exports to the United States itself. It seemed to be a justifiable solution. The acts of terrorism ended as abruptly as they had started and recovery began. This partially solved the immediate problem but didn’t provide any answers as to who had been involved.
Scotty had been working on his own agenda and an answer started to emerge. With the aid of Rachael Crossley, a White House aide, he started tracking the perpetrators. While in Europe following a trail he was taken hostage in an unrelated incident by a group of insurgents. There followed a series of incidents that were spread over the Middle East from which he was lucky to escape with his life. Finally he was branded a traitor but managed to return to the United States to clear his name and offer a solution to the events that crippled the country.
Only then was the depth of penetration into the US government by those involved with the terrorist activities acknowledged. The control of many of the largest US institutions and companies had passed to other countries when they provided bail-out funding. It had been a form of war that the United States had lost. Although understood and recognised it had only been partially dealt with and would remain a problem for some time.
This is a fast moving thriller that is entirely credible; the materials needed to make the pyrotechnic devices are readily available in every town in the United States and in most other countries worldwide. It could easily happen.