Winds of Spring – Safeguarding the Orion Protocols
About this book
Monolith Corporation’s systems security officer Anne Hopkins becomes immersed in the world of cyber criminality when pursued by a dangerous terrorist, the mysterious Khaled Benwalid, who wants to get hold of the protocols for the Orion software that powers the flight decks of virtually all commercial jetliners worldwide. Possession of the protocols could enable Benwalid to “simultaneously cause hundreds of airliners to crash without placing a single hijacker aboard any of them”. To protect the protocols, the President’s Special Counter-Terrorism Adviser sends Hopkins to Lausanne, Switzerland, to work with undercover agent Steve Loftis, the managing partner of an exclusive private bank, and Netwar specialist Bruce Campbell in unmasking Doctor Benwalid. She finds Lausanne swamped with refugees who have fled a wave of violence in the Middle East and North Africa that discredits the “Arab Spring” revolution instead of bringing hope and democracy to the region. Days after Hopkins’ arrival in the Olympic Capital fanatical extremists manipulate Lausanne’s refugees into rising against their Swiss hosts. The uprising occurs during a two-day Techno music festival, qualified by the leader of the refugees as an “outrage against Allah”. The refugees unleash an orgy of arson and killing unknown in Europe since the Middle Ages. The action climaxes with a series of unexpected twists, demonstrating that neither side on the religious divide has all the answers.