Action/Thriller

190

THE GEMINI TRAP is a fast-paced thriller of conspiracy and intrigue. Although the setting is during the height of the Vietnam war, it is not a war novel. Rather, it focuses on the plight of two brothers who are unwittingly caught up in a web of espionage and duplicity spun between Moscow, Southeast Asia and the heartland of America. At stake are the vital secrets of American electronic technology which are shifting the balance in the Cold War.

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It is 1967 and the Vietnam War is at its height. The Russians have supplied the North Vietnamese with an extensive array of radar-directed guns and missiles to counter the American air offensive. In Moscow, senior Russian commanders have become alarmed that sophisticated new techniques in electronic countermeasures which the Americans have begun to employ are rapidly compromising the effectiveness of their air defense weapons. Felix Droschkin, chief of the foreign technology directorate of Soviet military intelligence is tasked to obtain the secrets of these new American techniques. He meets with Piotr Ulyanov, head of the directorate engaged in espionage activities against NATO and the United States, and they prepare a complex plan to obtain the desired data.

The plan begins with the intentional downing of Navy pilot, Lee Hall who is taken captive by the North Vietnamese. He will be the bait, and his brother, Brax Hall, a senior US Air Force scientist, is the target. The scheme concocted by Soviet military intelligence appears to be one of convincing Brax Hall to ransom his brother by handing over the Air Force’s electronic warfare secrets. As Lee Hall’s condition worsens under North Vietnamese cruelty and an American rescue attempt fails, his brother is increasingly distraught and easily manipulated by two Americans, who are covert Russian agents, to agree to the ransom. Their task is made easier by his infatuation with the woman agent, Katrina.

After Brax Hall finally agrees to go along on the basis of transferring bogus data, the action shifts to the Gulf of Tonkin where the exchange will take place near an uninhabited island. The Chinese, who have gotten wind of the transaction, attempt to pre-empt it but their ship is wiped out by a Russian submarine which has been dispatched to ensure the transfer. On board the submarine, the Russian-American agents are unmasked as is the true intent of the Russian scheme: to kidnap Brax Hall and take him secretly to Russia where he will be forced to reveal the secret American technology.

In despair of their future, the brothers are transferred to a Russian ship which will take them to Vladivostok. In a misty, dawn attack, the ship is overrun by China Sea pirates in the pay of American agents who have learned of the Russian plot and are attempting to rescue the brothers. The rescue succeeds and the brothers are air-lifted to an American ship where they learn the full dimensions of the web of intrigue from which they have been rescued.