The Zakopane Dilemma

About the Book

Winter, 1982, Washington, DC, and the Cold War is Red hot! It should have been a fairly balanced day at ARGO, LTD., Currencies & Exchange, an investment firm purported to have quiet ties with the nations Executive office.  Forty year old financier Sam Abrahms has his schedule mapped out to include, clearing out the crap in his love life, making a buck or three, and seeing about getting his Sabre sloop ready for a May launch at the Chesapeake Bay shore.

But by Noon, Sam is up to his boot tops in Cold War treachery and thrown together with Josh Logan, FBI Counterintelligence, in a last ditch effort to catch an American nemesis.  Known only as The Ax to anyone outside a small cadre of communist associates, this mystery man has a twenty year history of espionage activity.  Somebodys got to find him.  Now!

The huge main frame computer, designed and built by Bostons ELECTRONART, has many military applications, including potential cataclysmic air defense ramifications, and is unparalleled in speed, capacity, and graphics capability.  The purchase appears to be legal, but the international shipment is forbidden by American export law.  Sam and Josh must stop the huge container shipment, already on the high seas, from being transhipped to an unknown communist location.

Finding the actual shipping container is made less arduous, by an American agent and poseur in Rio De Janeiro, Julio Martinez.  While Sam and Josh are consumed by their areas of expertise, Julio nearly loses his life in pursuit of the coveted shipping documents.

The cosmopolitan Washington headquarters of ARGO, LTD. hosts a priority meeting, and is ramrodded by Sams immediate boss, CEO Raymond Murphy, retired Admiral and former senior intelligence officer.  Investigative assignments are allocated, and federal participation is clarified.  Betsy Keller, logistics genie for ARGO, is completely, romantically dedicated to Sam, and is having difficulty with the dual role.  Primarily, its her biological clock, ticking away....

In Zakopane, Poland, Master Researcher and Communist spymaster Mikal Lalkos, The Ax, is plotting to keep tabs on his misappropriated mainframe supercomputer, while at the same time strengthening his transcontinental cabal in North and South America.  Lalkos three most trusted adjutants work with him to insure successful results.

The trail Sam will follow leads him from Washington to Copenhagen, on to Helsinki, a stop in Stockholm, hellish activity in Warsaw and Zakopane in the Tatra Mountains, and then through New Orleans, into a full scale mess in Rio de Janeiro.

Betsy will be Sam´s logistics controller and analyst, pretty much her job, and yes, most of the time she enjoys it.  But this time, Betsy, although razor sharp and thoroughly capable, is also totally in love, and she almost misses it.

And Sam, this time?

Life can be so damned unfair.

Deadly, too....

About the Author

Scott Lucas is a seasoned assignment writer, essayist, non-fiction author, and novelist. Lucas wrote the espionage/thriller The Not-So-Good Shepherd, and is currently collaborating on a startling and disturbing non-fiction work with a senior Soviet defector. A Cold War naval anti-submarine warfare flier, Lucas studied in the United States and Europe, and has held senior executive positions in both arenas. His international publishing credits include projects in business, medicine, the law, and espionage. He resides in Washington, DC.