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Patrick Robinson is the author of seven international bestselling suspense thrillers, including Nimitz Class and Hunter Killer, as well as several nonfiction bestsellers. He divides his time between Ireland and Cape Cod.

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Amid the Canary Islands lies the massive crater of thevolcano Cumbre Vieja. Scientists theorize that one day the volcano will erupt, triggering a series of events that will lead to a tsunami higher than any in recorded history. This mega-tsunami, with waves of more than 150 feet in height, would ravage Europe, Africa, and ultimately the East Coast of the United States, causing immeasurable loss of life and destruction ...

After Professor Paul Landon, the world's most prominent geophysicist, is found with a bullet in his head, it is discovered that Ravi Rashood -- America's nemesis and the former SAS officer who is now the head of Hamas -- has hatched a diabolical plot against the West: to fire a nuclear-tipped guided cruise missile -- Scimitar SL-2, named for the curved sword of the Muslim warrior Saladin -- into Cumbre Vieja.

United States Admiral Arnold Morgan, the retired National Security Adviser, and the Pentagon know it's not a joke when Rashood, accompanied once again by his wife, the Palestinian Shakira, explodes Mount St. Helens. Morgan knows something even more horrific is to come.

But stopping them won't be easy.

Rashood and his Hamas crew are deep in the ocean, in an undetectable sub, which he managed to procure from Russia via communist China. Perhaps worse, a new President, a weak-willed liberal in the White House, worries about taking a stand. As the terrorists' deadline approaches, the newly implemented and unseasoned National Security team must consider the unthinkable. They must assume the daunting task of organizing a mass relocation of major population centers along the East Coast to safer ground.

Morgan once again finds himself at the center of a desperate cat-and-mouse chase, battling his greatest enemy yet as he races against time to locate the silent underwater marauder and stop Rashood before the unimaginable happens.

With his trademark authentic research and grasp of military hardware, geopolitics, and cutting-edge science, Patrick Robinson is at the top of his game with this new tale.

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Scimitar SL-2

HarperCollins Publishers

Chapter One

Thursday, January 8, 2009
The White House, Washington, D.C.

The brand-new Democratic Administration, freshfrom a narrow election victory, was moving into the WestWing. With the exception of the President, who knew he was goinganyway at the end of his second term, every hour of every day wasa trauma for the outgoing Republicans. For the big hitters of themilitary and government, handing over the reins to what most ofthem believed to be a bunch of naive, inexperienced, half-assedlimousine liberals led by an idealistic young President from RhodeIsland, who would have been pushed to hold down a proper executivejob -- well, anywhere -- was appalling.

And today was probably the worst day of all. Adm. ArnoldMorgan, the retiring President's National Security Adviser, wasabout to leave the White House for the last time. His big nineteenth-century Naval desk had already been cleared andremoved, and now there were only a few good-byes left. The doorto his office was wide open, and the Admiral, accompanied by his alarmingly beautiful secretary Kathy O'Brien, was ready to go. Inattendance was the Secretary of State Harcourt Travis; the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Tim Scannell; the Chief of NavalOperations, Adm. Alan Dickson; the Director of the NationalSecurity Agency, Adm. George Morris; and Morris's personalassistant, Lt. Comdr. James Ramshawe, American by birth, withAustralian parents.

As the great man took his leave, they all stood in a small "family"huddle, veterans in the last half-dozen years of some of themost brutal secret operations ever conducted by the UnitedStates Military. Their devotion to Arnold had grown from theseries of great triumphs on the international stage due, almostentirely, to the strengths of the Admiral's intellect.

Like Caesar, Admiral Morgan was not lovable -- except toKathy -- but his grasp of international politics, string-pulling,poker-playing, threats and counterthreats, Machiavellian propaganda,and the conduct of restricted, classified military operationswas second to none. At all of the above he was a virtuoso,driven by an unbending sense of patriotism. During his reign inthe West Wing he intimidated, cajoled, outwitted, and bulliedsome of the most powerful men on earth. His creed was to fightand fight, and never to lower his blade short of victory. Gen.Douglas MacArthur and Gen. George Patton were his heroes. Andnow the Admiral was departing, leaving his Washington confi-dants devastated, convinced that another heaven and anotherearth must surely pass before such a man could be again.

Many of the high-ranking civilians would themselves go withina few short weeks of the incoming Democrats, but none so utterlyignominiously as Admiral Morgan himself. Called on the telephoneby a Miss Betty-Ann Jones, a Southern liberal who hadnever been to Washington, he was told, "President McBridethinks it would be better if y'all resigned raht now, since he dun'tthink you and he's gonna get along real well."

Arnold Morgan had needed no second bidding. Five minuteslater, he had dictated his short letter of resignation to Kathy, and ten minutes later, they were working on their wedding date, thecolossal job of National Security Adviser no longer standingbetween them.

At Arnold's farewell dinner, at a favorite Georgetown restaurant,Secretary Travis, always the voice of irony and sly humor,had arrived at the table humming theatrically and loudly the tuneof "Those Wedding Bells Are Breaking Up That Old Gang ofMine." Shortly he would return to Harvard to take up a professorship.

The military members of Arnold's inner circle would remain attheir posts, more or less, under a new Commander in Chief.

And now Admiral Morgan stood at the great oak door to hisoffice. He hesitated briefly, and nodded curtly to the empty room.Then he strode outside to the corridor, where his former colleagueswaited. He smiled with some difficulty. "I'd be grateful,"he said, "if each one of you would come and take me by thehand."

And so they said their farewells, each consumed by the privatesense of trust they all shared with the National Security Chief.The last handshake was with the youngest of them, LieutenantCommander Ramshawe, with whom Admiral Morgan had a nearfather-son relationship.

"I'll miss you, Jimmy," he said.

"And I'll miss you, sir," replied the young officer. "I don't supposeyou'll ever know how much."

"Thanks, kid," said the Admiral informally. And then he turnedon his heel, immaculately tailored in a dark gray suit, gleamingblack leather lace-up shoes, blue shirt, and Naval Academy tie.

He walked resolutely, shoulders back, upright, full of dignity,with Kathy, his bride-to-be, at his side. He walked among the portraitsof Presidents past, nodding sharply to General Eisenhower,as he always did. He walked like a man not departing but like ayoung officer recently summoned to the colors. In his mind a lifetimeof thoughts, a lifetime of service to his country. The differentpeople he had been ... the Commanding Officer of a surface ship and then of a nuclear submarine out of Norfolk, Virginia ... theIntelligence Tsar, head of the National Security Agency in Maryland... and finally the right hand of a faltering Republican Presidentwho ended up knowing neither loyalty nor patriotism. Thatnever mattered. Arnold had enough for both of them.

Walking along the familiar corridors, the Admiral heard oncemore the swish of the waves on a ship's hull heading out of athreatened harbor and into the great rolling swells of the ocean,the metallic scream of the anchor chain, the terse instructions ofthe COB, and in the deepest recesses of his mind, the shouts andcommands of far-lost U.S. Navy SEALs whom he had never seen,never met, obeying his orders. Always obeying. As he himselfobeyed his. Mostly.

He heard again the bells of the watch, tolling off the hours.And the smooth slide of his submarine's periscope ...

Excerpted from Scimitar SL-2by Robinson, Patrick Excerpted by permission.
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