Ken Raybuck

Sword Ken Raybuck

SWORD is the story of a young man recruited by the CIA in the mid-eighties. Sammy Kane, a student at Rochester Institute of Technology, secretly creates a program enabling a spy satellite to send missile launch signals to the Soviet Union's nuclear defense command center. The "First Strike" doomsday device fails to launch and sets the stage for an FBI investigation into his work at RIT. Sammy Kane is a serious young man with limited feelings for others, except his mother and close friends, Fred Adams and Yury Orlov. Although he is a genius, Sammy does not realize he is being duped by others he trusts until it is too late. The author brings back a character, Randy, from his first novel, You Meet Everyone Twice. Randy's assignment, as a special CIA agent, is to bring Sammy in, dead or alive. Sammy and his boyhood friend, Fred, use the Great Lakes and the Canadian wilderness to hide from all those who pursue them. The two young men elude the KGB, CIA, FBI, Coast Guard, and Ontario Provincial Police, in a fast-paced adventure involving boats, planes, trains, explosions, a frozen lake, and a Russian priest. Sammy's beloved momma is in grave danger when a KGB sleeper agent uses her to bring him out of hiding. Russian immigrants Yury and Derek Orlov, are also drawn into the high-stakes Cold War drama. Derek Orlov carries a secret with him when he emigrates from Russia to join his brother Yury. The delicate balance of power must be restored so neither superpower seriously considers the First Strike option.