London, today. Construction workers make an extraordinary find: a crude atomic bomb, dating from World War II. Its discovery forces Deputy Home Minister Edmund Ramsden to scour the files of Britain's wartime intelligence for an explanation. What he learns forces his countryand the United Statesto confront the last, dark secret of the war.The story shifts back to July, 1945. Young physicist Philip Cavanaugh, working on America's first atomic bomb, is suddenly ordered on a clandestine journey from New Mexico into occupied Germany. His mission: inspect a strange Nazi laboratory lying within the Russian zone. Cavanaugh's dangerous visitand the fantastic secret he uncoversdraws him into a web of intrigue involving the victorious British, Soviet, and American powers. Kidnapped by British espionage, pursued by the Russians, Cavanaugh manages to return to Washington, D.C., only to face the greatest threat of all: a desperate, last-ditch scheme by the Nazis to annihilate the three Allied capitals with primitive atomic weapons.Scrupulously based on actual historical and scientific developments, Parting Shot is an exciting, fast-paced techno-thriller that rewrites the end of World War II.
