Intercept-Patrick Robinson

Intercept
Patrick Robinson
Vanguard, May 11 2010, $25.95
www.vanguard.com
ISBN: 9781593155841

The two Western educated childhood friends became al-Qaeda terrorists killing military and civilians until Ibrahim Sharif and Yousaf Mohammed were captured by US Navy SEAL Team 10 in a small village in the Hindu Kush mountain region of Afghan. They were taken to Guantomino Bay where they were held prisoners but refused to cooperate; not even providing their names to the military tribunal.

A few years later, the court system demands habeas corpus applies to the detainees. With Saudi money to buy Epstein’s law firm, the two terrorists and two other cohorts are free. However, neither the law firm nor the terrorists realizes that the CIA and Mossad are tracking them. The quartet plots an act at a school in Connecticut with plans after that to return to the Hindu Kush for further activity against the hated west. Retired Navy SEAL Lieutenant Commander Mack Bedford, who led the first sweep that captured the pair, leads another operation against them with deadly force not just authorized but required.

This is an exciting action packed thriller as Bedford returns to active duty to go after the same terrorists he caught the last time he was in Afghanistan. The story line is fast-paced throughout, but also has an accusatory tone blaming liberals and leftists for being soft on terrorism and arguing to keep Gitmo open. These premises ignore that a right wing administration took its eye off al Qaeda and that the courts system has locked away in federal pens some nasty terrorists; none of whom have escaped. Still readers will be hooked from the moment that the espionage agency Intercept the electronic traffic as Bin Laden and the CIA-Mossad agents know the importance of Yousaf and Sharif.

Harriet Klausner