The Zenith Angle

Book excerpt: “Gleeful, shrewd, speculative, cynical, closely observed . . . The Zenith Angle offers wisdom and solace, thrills and laughter.”—The Washington Post “Compelling and important . . . A darkly comic fable of info-war, the black budget, über-geek idealism, and the politics of Homeland Insecurity.”—William Gibson, author of Pattern Recognition Pioneering computer wizard Derek “Van” Vandeveer has been living extra-large as a VP for a booming Internet company. But the September 11 attacks on America change everything. Recruited as the key member of an elite federal computer-security team, Van enters the labyrinthine trenches of the Washington intelligence community. His special genius is needed to debug the software glitch in America’s most crucial KH-13 satellite, capable of detecting terrorist hotbeds worldwide. But the problem is much deeper. Now Van must make the unlikely leap from scientist to spy, team up with a ruthlessly resourceful ex-Special Forces commando, and root out an unknown enemy—one with access to a weapon of untold destructive power. “Great fun . . . A cyberthriller of 21st-century technologies [that] peeps wittily behind the national security scenes of a modern superpower.”—New Scientist “A comedic thriller for the homeland security era.”—Entertainment Weekly