The Birdwatchers

“Matching up a terrorist with a shoulder-fired missile, that’s our worst nightmare,” stated Senator Barbara Boxer, D-California, in September, 2011.A member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Boxer made the comment to ABC News after the network disclosed that “an estimated 20,000 man-portable surface-to-air missiles” were missing from Libyan Army weapon warehouses.Fact: Thousands of surface-to-air missiles are still missing today.Fact: According to the FAA, an estimated 5,000 airplanes are in the skies over the United States at any given moment.M.H. Sargent has combined these facts into a taut, new thriller. The story unfolds at breakneck speed as terrorists take down a commercial flight from Vancouver, B.C. to Phoenix four days before Christmas, killing all on board. While the public is told that the plane crash was due to mechanical error, an elite CIA team working covertly inside the United States knows the truth: it was a missile. And worse, the terrorists have more.But where are they? And what planes are next on their list? Seemingly powerless to stop the Islamic fanatics, the CIA comes up with a daring plan to have two of their own people infiltrate the terror cell. But when the pair vanishes into thin air, so does any hope of stopping the madmen in their quest to take out more planes.