MELBOURNE, Fla., July 22, 2004 (PRIMEZONE) -- The events of Sept. 11 reminded America that it was not impervious to a domestic attack. The plot could have been just the tip of the iceberg. Lee Boyland's The Rings of Allah (now available through AuthorHouse), projects a high-adrenaline story of a realistic terrorist attack with horrific results.
Weapons of mass destruction, renegade Russian KGB officers and Osama bin Laden's fanatical master plan for the destruction of Western civilization intertwine in Boyland's thriller. The Rings of Allah begins in Kazakhstan shortly after World War II where a Soviet development team working on nuclear devices is wiped out, and the weapons are lost. The novel then flashes forward to 1990 as a group of rogue KGB officers recover the devices and sell them to al-Qaeda.
Mohammed al-Mihdar, bin Laden's lieutenant, is given the task of infiltrating American cities where he can place the bombs. With the devices safely stored in Afghanistan, he recruits and mentors a young American nuclear physics graduate named Ralph Eid. Mohammed guides his young protege through al-Qaeda training and is delighted when the young man finds work in an American nuclear weapons laboratory.
With al-Qaeda providing financial backing streamlined through a fake inheritance, Ralph leaves the lab and establishes a chain of nuclear diagnostic facilities in high-rise office buildings in major U.S. cities. There, Ralph and Mohammed easily smuggle the weapons into the country disguised as medical research instruments manufactured in Pakistan. However, Ralph has become a successful businessman and fallen in love with an American venture capitalist, Nancy Hatterson. With a newfound sense of maturity, Ralph questions his terrorist mission, but with everything in place, Mohammed no longer needs him to finish the task.
The plan is set and only a few hours separate a number of American cities from total destruction. The Rings of Allah provides a heart-pumping, reality-based scenario that keeps the tension high until the last fatalistic pages.
After graduating with a degree in nuclear engineering, Boyland served as an officer in the Army and was assigned to the Defense Atomic Support Agency's Nuclear Emergency Team. After the Army, he designed conventional and special ordnance chemical weapons. He later switched his interests to hazardous waste disposal and founded a successful medical waste company. The Rings of Allah is his first novel, but the sequel The Rings of Allah: The Caliph will be available in 2005. For more information, readers can visit www.ringsofallah.com.
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