FROM KIM DU TOIT:  Prime Target.

Nick Walker moves to California to take a new job as a senior data analyst. Everything looks rosy: he’s getting a good salary and has fine prospects at a reputable company. On his first day on the job, however, he discovers that the company has been taken over by a huge data management company, and Nick soon learns that their biggest client is the U.S. Government. Nick becomes part of a small team of “data miners” who comb through masses of international financial transactions collected by various government agencies, to try to predict terrorist activity by tracking their spending.

One day a suspicious set of financial transactions is brought to Nick’s desk for further investigation, and in a stunning revelation, he discovers that the government has begun covertly spying on millions of American citizens, not just foreigners.

As a Desert Storm veteran with expertise in communications, his expertise in data management, and with help from his girlfriend (and expert hacker) Cassie Papadakis, Nick hopes to overcome the tremendous odds against him to expose this illegal activity, but it’s difficult when the lawbreakers are themselves the government agencies that are supposed to be safeguarding the nation.

How far up the chain of command does this lawlessness go?