Uncontacted Frontier

The brilliant Harvard-educated scientist, Carrie Bloomfield, returns in this latest Phillip Temples saga of suspense and international intrigue. When a diabolical corporation threatens genocide against a peaceful indigenous tribe whose land contains valuable minerals, Bloomfield acts to save them–at great personal peril. Like Temples’ previous novels, Uncontacted Frontier payoffs in entertaining dividends.

Carrie quickly hurried away and headed to the unmarked tent. She saw no one in the vicinity, nor was a guard posted. It was now or never. She seized the opportunity and entered.

At first, Carrie was puzzled by the various scientific instruments in the room. But she did recognize one item—a spectrometer. The nomenclature on the front panel indicated it was a portable arc/spark mobile metal analyzer. Next to it she saw several silvery metallic rock samples laid out on the table next to a laptop computer. The screensaver displayed the stylized block letters “A-F” circling a globe in green. She walked over to the computer and hit the space bar and was rewarded immediately with a Mac OS computer screen. Carrie grabbed a USB stick lying on the table, plugged it in, then clicked on the Finder program and began copying all of the files from the “Documents” directory onto the stick—periodically glancing over her shoulder at the tent opening. If someone walked in now, she’d have no idea how to explain her actions.

Carrie silently willed the animated file icons on the screen to move faster. Several dozen documents and Excel spreadsheets in the directory were already copied. One alphanumeric string in the file names consistently popped out at her: “Pd46.” Carrie knew it represented the chemical element Palladium, atomic number 46. She also knew it was a key component in fuel cells, as well as in all types of electronic devices—especially smartphones. It was more valuable than gold.

The file copying was finally complete. Carrie yanked the stick out of the laptop and put it in her pocket. She started to stand up and leave just when—