US Army Staff Sergeant Josh Adams is summoned to a secret meeting with an Arab and a Russian – three strangers in war-ravaged Afghanistan. Over the next few hours they get to know a little bit about the other – at least as much as they are willing to reveal. It is quickly obvious that much is being left unsaid, each man straining to conceal deep personal motives. It is a dance of lies mixed with truth, but behind each man’s story are secrets that will not be revealed. For disaffected scientist Sorgei Groschenko and fervent Muslim Husam al Din, pieces of the unseen past have been laid together like paving stones to create a path that led to this desert tent. For disillusioned Adams, most of his life had been wrapped up in a lie. Between the lies and the truth, destiny has thrown these three together as comrades in an horrific plot against the United States. A hellish conspiracy involves a toxic weapon of mass destruction to be delivered aboard a container ship headed for Miami. But the plan is blown off course by Hurricane Yolanda in the Caribbean Sea. A fateful container eventually falls into the hands of treasure-hunting pirates as an unsuspecting family’s salvage bid goes wrong. It seems nothing on earth can be done to prevent a vengeful Muslim martyr from achieving his ultimate dream: striking a massive blow against ‘an infidel nation’. Or can it? Rich Johnson’s tough and pertinent thriller Deadly Cargo paints a chilling picture of today’s world and offers an insight into the thinking that drives extreme behaviour. Rich Johnson is one of America’s best-known experts on wilderness survival and sailing. As an Army National Guard Special Forces veteran, he developed his outdoor skills further while living off the land for a year in wild Utah with his wife Becky and two young children. A regular columnist for Outdoor Life magazine, he has published hundreds of articles on outdoor subjects. (first published November 4th 2010)
