A thriller, from a writer I have never heard of though he's written a number of scripts for movies I recognize. He's good and this thriller takes us on a tension filled ride, as an Islamic terrorist (are there any other kind these days) has created a new strain of smallpox and hopes to loose it on the Bad Guy of the World, the US. The protagonist, Scott Murdoch, code name the Pilgrim, was orphaned at an early age, adopted and raised by a wealthy couple. He gets a first class prep school education, matriculates to Harvard and ends up working in a top secret CIA group. He becomes top dog by assassinating his supervisor, when he realizes the supervisor is about to turn classified info to the Russians, This assassination takes place in Moscow, done without alerting his higher ups. They immediately grab him, put him through a difficult interrogation, finally realizing that his act saved hundreds of lives. He takes over his supervisor's position, works for a few years and decides to retire at thirty, to live a normal life.
He befriends a black detective in NYC named Bradley, a 9/11 hero, is called in on a difficult murder case, that of a young woman and the novel begins. As the Pilgrim begins to look for evidence on this case, three suits appear, with a black limousine of course, and Pilgrim knows something is up. He's taken to the President by the CIA director and is told that a lone wolf terrorist, nicknamed the Saracen, has been able to make a vaccine free small pox virus. The rest of the novel takes us all over the world, to the Middle East where we learn about the making of the Saracen, his hatred for Saudi Arabia and the US because they support the Saudi Family. We follow the Saracen to Afghanistan where he joins the Afghan rebels and wins his his stripes and reputation by shooting down Russian helicopters at the age of seventeen.
Eventually, he vows to bring down the US, makes a long range plan which includes becoming a doctor, then setting up a lab to make a vaccine free small pox virus. Alternating with his story, we follow the Pilgrim on his journey, his quest to find out who this terrorist is, where he lives, what motivates him, and how he plans to go about effecting his plan. Much of the hunt takes place in Bodrum, Turkey, where the terrorist's sister, Cumali, lives, a seemingly single mom who also happens to be a Turkish cop. Strangely, the murder case in NYC merges with a death of an American in Bodrum. And Cumali happens to team up with the Pilgrim to find the murderer. And we find out that the Cumali's child is actually the terrorist's son. Years earlier, an Israeli missile killed the Saracen's wife and daughter, leaving only his downs syndrome son alive. He leaves the child in his sister's safe keeping so he can carry out his plan.
The Pilgrim realizes that 'love' is the strongest of emotions, especially love for one's child. He figures that the only way to trap the Saracen, bring him out into the open, would be to threaten his son. Thus, the Pilgrim lures the Saracen to Bodrum, kidnaps his son and makes it clear the son will be killed if the Saracen does not tell the Pilgrim his plan. Love triumphs, and the terrorist sacrifices his plan to destroy the US with smallpox to save his son. The Pilgrim wins, alerts the President about the where abouts of the vaccines, the terrorist loses, the sister keeps the son, and the Pilgrim lives to fight another day.
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