Michael Gordon
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This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
On a rainy evening in the spring of 1997, only fifteen minutes before closing time, a, Southern California car dealership is hit by an antitank rocket. Seven people die. The showroom burns down. Three days later a letter arrives at the corporation's headquarters, signed by someone who wants to be known only as Michiko. The author claims responsibility for the attack, and requests an acknowledgment, a classified ad in the motorcycle section of The Los Angeles Times. The other request is that they forward the letter to the FBI. There are no threats, and no further demands.
Within the following months two more dealerships are destroyed - all selling the same brand of Japanese cars. After the third attack Michiko demands fifteen million dollars worth of diamonds. Arrangements are made for the exchange, where Michiko would bring the offer of peace and carry off the gemstones, but the site is surrounded by FBI agents and the contact isn't completed. The following week another dealership is destroyed in Texas. Now Michiko's orders are more specific: A woman, completely alone, dressed in white, drenched in perfume, guarding the diamonds and waiting for the contact. On Labor Day 1997, at night on a San Diego beach, Michiko grabs the diamonds with the help of a superbly trained dog and disappears into the dark.
If there is a single mistake in the perfectly executed crime, it happened during the training of the dog when Michiko used a young woman named Mary Carpenter. Because there is no other evidence, the FBI releases a videotape made during the exchange to several television stations. Watching the video, Mary Carpenter thinks she knows the dog and its trainers. She calls the FBI, but because they annoy her and she has no faith in law enforcement, Carpenter sets out to track down the extortionists on her own.
Michiko's Rockets is a complex story of crime and punishment, the chronicle of a hunt, where the heroine takes revenge on the extortionists who had killed her roommate. It's a deeply personal mission: Carpenter's father was murdered when she was nine years old, and she hopes that by catching the diamond bandits she would find her own peace. Any reader who enjoys the thrillers of Frederick Forsyth and Michael Crichton will enjoy Michiko's Rockets. And, because of the female protagonist, women will especially enjoy the story.
The title, Michiko's Rockets, refers to a code word. One of the terrorists, Henry Kaminsky, uses the Japanese name Michiko (it's a woman's name) when dealing with the FBI. His real identity remains hidden to everyone except two accomplices and Mary Carpenter. Kaminsky's only mistake is underestimating Carpenter's intelligence and tenacity.
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