The Cassandra Compact (Covert One Novel) [Paperback]

In Robert Ludlum's The Cassandra Compact, Covert-One, the president's personal, super-secret agency formed after some recent virus-driven chaos (The Hades Factor, co-written with Gayle Lynds), is staffed by an unknown number of international covert operatives, including Dr Jon Smith, late of the USAMRIID. And a good thing, too, because someone's helped themselves to Russia's share of the world's last two stores of the smallpox virus, an eradicated yet hideously deadly bug with no ready vaccine.

That the pox was nabbed and who nabbed it is clear enough early on. Why such a seemingly large and disparate cadre of global citizens (keeping the players straight puts one in mind of Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First" routine) chose to pinch the bug and for what end are the novel's driving questions. Freelance Serbian uber-nasty, Ivan Beria, is among the apparent perpetrators as are Dylan Reed and Adam Treloar of NASA, Tony Price, the head of the super-secret NSA and a bunch of Russians. The good-guys roster claims Smith, Covert-One's head Nathaniel Klein, Briton and ex-SAS man Peter Howell, Smith's deceased girlfriend's sister and CIA operative Randi Russell, the girlfriend's best friend, backup shuttle astronaut Megan Olson and another bunch of Russians. Suffice it to say that Smith and company trot the globe, cat-and-mousing after the pox and in so doing careen through a classically speedy and Ludlumesque (if coincidence dependent) plot leaving large numbers of efficiently dispatched corpses in their wake. --Michael Hudson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Praise for Robert Ludlum’s The Hades Factor

‘The new team has a pop hit on their hands that should bounce right up the bestseller list’ Kirkus Reviews

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

A brilliant Covert-One novel from 'the real Titan of the genre' [GQ]

"What they're going to do, I would never have believed it. It's insanity!" They were the last words spoken by Yuri Danko, an officer in the medical division of Russia's security service, before his body was ripped apart by a spray of assassin's bullets. Now Covert-One's Jon Smith has Danko's classified papers, and he's unearthed a terrifying global conspiracy. A Serb terrorist has been despatched from Russia to smuggle hazardous vials of a deadly bacteria into the United States. His mission: to deliver them to an unknown US government agent. Then both men are murdered, and the deadly bacteria is stolen... It's up to Lt Col Smith to find the madman who possesses it, before he holds a defenceless world hostage with the power to render the human race extinct.

'Smallpox, as we know it, has been eradicated from the planet. The deadliest of viruses, it could cause an epidemic of terrifying proportions should it be unleashed on the population at large.'

Dr Jon Smith has been summoned. The worst-case scenario is about to happen: someone is trying to steal Russia's store of the virus. It is up to Jon, with the help of Covert-One, to stop the conspirators in their tracks. But his adversaries are several steps ahead of him, and Jon must find and stop them before they unleash Armageddon upon the world.

Zooming from America to Europe and beyond, 'Robert Ludlum's The Cassandra Compact' bristles with action, tension and adventure in true Covert-One style.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Robert Ludlum launched his career as a bestselling writer with THE SCARLATTI INHERITANCE in 1971, the first of a string of international bestsellers. There are more than 300 million copies of his books in print and they have been translated in 32 languages.