Mongol Moon

Synopsis

Mongol Moon begins as a war that has already crossed the border before most Americans realize they are under attack. China and Russia have spent years positioning spies, soldiers, and support networks inside the United States while Iran and North Korea help keep Western attention divided. On Christmas Eve, the preparation becomes action: an electromagnetic-pulse strike cripples the electrical grid and strips away much of the technology, communications, and institutional response the country assumes will always be there. The scale is global, but the novel is built through intersecting human viewpoints. Gale Washington, an analyst at the Operations Center for Joint Intelligence Command, is in Northern Virginia with his daughter Layla as a neighborhood holiday gathering turns into the first hours of survival. His wife, U.S. Navy Commander Joey Washington, is aboard the crippled International Space Station with a terrifying view of the catastrophe below and a landing zone in Kazakhstan rather than home. Javad Shir-Del, chief spymaster for Iran's Ministry of Intelligence, has helped set an audacious plan in motion, but his private motive is revenge against the regime that destroyed his family and the consequences reach relatives living in Virginia. At Fort Knox, Gunnery Sergeant An Nguyen and his Marines have only moments to react as the outage turns violent. Their mobility comes from one of the few vehicles still running: an M1A1 Abrams main battle tank nicknamed Alice. Those Washington-family, intelligence, Iranian, orbital, and Marine storylines establish the primary reference points for the wider Mongol Moon universe and for the timeline that branches outward into the anthologies and standalone fronts.