Operation al-Nagrib

General Irfan Akram, who has seized power in a bloody coup in Islamabad, hatches a diabolical plot to assassinate US Secretary of State Barbara Evans on a scheduled visit to Mianwali Airbase, in Pakistan's Punjab Province. Unfortunately, the plot goes haywire when the fidayeen squad tasked with the assassination turns rogue, and acquires a tactical nuclear weapon outside the knowledge and control of its handlers in the ISI. Meanwhile, the US secures initial intel of the planned fidayeen strike, and delivers a strong ultimatum to the Pakistanis to abort the strike, or else...When further intel from the Indian spy agency RAW, and its own sources, reaches the US of the nuclear weapon in the fidayeens' possession, an incensed President Alan Wilkins threatens the Pakistanis with nuclear annihilation. In pursuance of this, he orders Carrier Strike Group Three into the Arabian Sea, and positions it 200 nautical miles off Karachi Harbour...Panic grips the Pakistani Army and the ISI when the realisation dawns on them that they are unable to establish contact with their fidayeen squad. They try desperately to reach the top leaders of the al-Qaeda, the Lashkar, the Haqqani Network and the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan, who are the controllers of the fidayeen squad, but they have suddenly turned incommunicado, and are untraceable.Meanwhile, CIA Special Agents Mike Hunter and Karen Sanders are brought in, and with inputs from Rajiv Vir of RAW, race against time to intercept and annihilate the fidayeen...
About the Author: Ajay Sachdev is a stockbroker and former advertising executive settled in Bangalore. A post-graduate in Marketing and Advertising Management, he worked with the well-known advertising agency, MAA Bozell, for several years, before leaving in 1987 to begin a career in stockbroking, where he continues to this day. The son of a former naval officer, the late Commander Tej Krishan Sachdev, N.M., I.N. (retd), he hails from a family with a strong military tradition, and has several relatives who've served in the armed forces in high positions. He spent his childhood aboard a variety of naval ships and submarines (families were permitted to visit on Sundays, when the ships were in port), and acquired a unique exposure to matters military, particularly naval. Right from his teenage years he was fascinated with spy fiction, and more recently with terrorism originating from the Af-Pak Sector, and has been fuelled by inspiration from some of the leading spy thriller writers of the genre. Exhibiting an early talent for writing, at the tender age of ten he wrote his first short story, "The Great Lesson", which was published in the "Times of India" in their Sunday Magazine Section, in 1969. At the age of sixteen, an article he submitted was published in the magazine 'JS' ('Junior Statesman', now defunct). During his undergraduate years in Christ College, Bangalore, he won the First Prize in the Short Story Competition for all three years running. At MAA Bozell, he contributed several articles to the in-house MAA magazine, which won accolades from seasoned advertising professionals. Recently, at the urging of former advertising colleagues and friends, he decided to pursue a serious career in writing, and "Operation al-Nagrib", a gripping and hugely entertaining spy thriller was born, the first of many more to come...