Winds of Kandahar

September, 2001. Moira “Shanny” Shanahan, a sharp witted lesbian private eye, investigates the torture-murder of a Middle Eastern woman in Washington, D.C. Hired by the old lady’s son, Reza, a stuffy Midwestern professor, Shanny and he follow the crime scene evidence to Qusay, the elusive leader of an al-Qaeda sleeper cell. Although they make an odd and bickering pair, Shanny and Reza locate a Soviet-era suitcase bomb that Reza's mother hid from Qusay. Betrayed by a trusted associate, Shanny winds up losing her wife, Vivien, and the suitcase bomb when Qusay ambushes her. Events come to a head when Shanny and Reza track down Qusay to Dulles airport where they make one final attempt to keep Qusay from detonating a nuclear weapon over the nation’s capital that fateful day on 9/11.