A few years ago, James Garber wrote Vertical Run, one of the fastest, non-stop thrillers I've ever read: the story of a Vietnam veteran turned businessman who's having a bad day, trapped in a 45 story office building with a bunch of people, including his wife, who want him dead. Now Garber's back with Whirlwind, a similarly-paced breakneck roller coaster disguised as a techno-thriller.

Charlie McKenzie spent thirty years doing the CIA's dirty work; he was the best strategist and agent in the business. Then he took the fall for an intelligence blunder of mammoth proportions, a mistake that cost one man his life and Charlie his job, his freedom, and his good name. After being abandoned by the very government he'd given his life to in service, Charlie ends up in prison, and while he's in prison his wife dies. Needless to say, Charlie's a bit pissed at his former employers, and he's been biding his time, waiting for the opportunity to pay a few folks back.

He gets the chance when Irina Kolodenkova, a young Russian spy, accidentally stumbles upon a top-secret ("Magna Black," don't you know) weapons technology being developed at a remote military installation. Her partner is killed, but Irina manages to escape with both an information disc and the technology itself. This secret defense project - codenamed "Whirlwind" - is supposedly the most important military breakthrough since the atomic bomb (what else is new, right?), and the U.S. government is desperate to keep it out of anyone else's hands. They're scouring the countryside looking for her, but they haven't managed to find her.

Which brings us back to Charlie, who's been put out to pasture as an over the hill leper, molding away at his ranch with his divorced daughter and her children. The president's national security adviser - personally in charge of the Whirlwind project - has known Charlie for years. In fact, he's the man responsible for the "misunderstanding" that cost Charlie so much. He calls Charlie for help after young Irina manages to make off with her top secret haul, because if there's one thing Charlie's good at it is "cold-reading," or understanding a person better than they understand themselves. That makes him an exceptionally good candidate for tracking her down quickly, because he will be able to understand how she might handle herself, what tactics she would adopt, and the like. Of course, Charlie is understandably reluctant to work again for this "rolypoly little weasel." His first condition: ten million dollars. His second condition: ten million more. And that's just for the opportunity to tell Charlie what is so important.

Ultimately, the weasel (otherwise known as Sam) convinces Charlie to take the assignment by promising him what the former agent wants most: a presidential pardon and an apology for what happened. Sam, of course, doesn't plan on living up to this promise: he already has plans to eliminate Charlie once the job is done. But Charlie has plans of his own - plans which include video footage of Sam detailing the entire affair, uploaded to a secure "web vault" so as to serve as Charlie's get-out-of-this-alive card. After all, if Charlie ends up dead, the footage will be immediately broadcast to a host of news outlets, and Sam's secrets - all of them - would be public knowledge.