PRICE OF DUTY

Brown (Iron Wolf, 2015, etc.) once again deploys futuristic Cybernetic Infantry Devices to keep Mother Russia from re-establishing hegemony over Poland and the Baltic nations.

Those countries are still recovering from a Russian false flag attack. Now Russian President Gennadiy Gryzlov has launched Operation Plague, all-out cyberwarfare. From a buried fortress called Perun’s Aerie deep inside Mount Manaraga in the Nether-Polar Urals, an atomic-powered supercomputer sends a Romanian nuclear power reactor into near meltdown and then shuts down Poland’s financial system and electrical grid. U.S. President Stacy Anne Barbeau is out of her depth. Only her exiled mortal enemy, former U.S. President Kevin Martindale, and Scion, his private military-contractor company, can combat the attack. That requires not only CIDs—"a human-piloted combat robot"—from the Iron Wolfe Squadron, but also Scion’s never-deployed XCV-62 stealth air freighter. The mercenaries also need Scion’s pilot Brad McLanahan’s multifaceted combat skills and Polish Special Forces Maj. Nadia Rozek's expertise. Strap in, for there are shootouts on every page plus a well-choreographed climactic raid on Perun’s Aerie's computers. By then Scion has solved the matter of corrupting an airliner’s flight software to lure Piotr Wilk, Poland’s heroic president, into an assassination ambush. The characters are static and one-dimensional, including the thoroughly contemptible and morally bereft Gryzlov; the dialogue has the necessary quotient of manly banter; and the settings are cinematic. Literary flaws there may be, but Brown deserves kudos for contriving a compelling, fast-paced, and imaginative techno-thriller from a conflict where most foot soldiers are wizards at typing computer code.

There’s so much action here it’s a wonder there aren’t bullet holes and bomb craters on every page.