* Stranded on the remote coral atoll of Tongareva, a defecting scientist hovers at death's door. His frail body, the repository of secrets to a breakthrough in rocket propulsion, he is soon to become the target of a deadly race between two of the most terrifying weapons systems ever devised.* Thousands of miles away in mid-Pacific, Rear Admiral Nikolay Bakhirev, commander of the Soviet super-carrier Kiev, has diverted his ship toward the atoll. At the same time the American nuclear airship Grand Eagle, a top-secret modern military successor to the dirigible, larger and more sophisticated than any in the past, carrying an elite team of scientists and military men, VTOL fighters and state of the art laser weaponry, leaves its secret underground hangar on its maiden flightto Tongareva. As the two juggernauts feint and probe, edging ever nearer to all-out combat on a scale Jules Verne never could have imagined, the hours tick away for the people on Tongareva, caught in their own bitter struggle for possession of the scientist and his vital secrets.* An unforgettable cold war technological thriller by the author of the chilling Houndstooth, praised by the Philadelphia Inquirer as "one of those books that takes today's technology and carries it one giant leap forward.... Michael Crichton writes books like these."
