On a quiet park bench in Manhattan - just miles from the ruins of the World Trade Center - a spymaster delivers a chilling secret message to Jake Grafton: A rogue Russian general has sold four nuclear warheads to a radical Islamic terrorist group, the Sword of Islam. The group intends to detonate them in America in the ultimate terror strike, the apocalypse that will trigger a holy war between Western civilization and the Muslim world. After passing the message on to his peers, Grafton is charged by the president with assembling a secret team to find the warheads before America's population centers are consumed by a nuclear holocaust.

As he hunts for terrorists, Grafton soon finds himself up to his neck in power politics, techno-billionaires, money-grubbing traitors, anarchists, and spies. He also discovers that the terrorists don't all come from the Middle East. They come from places close to home. They masquerade as patriots. Some may even have the president's ear.

With the survival of Western civilization at stake, Grafton pulls out all the stops. Calling on the assistance of the indomitable Toad Tarkington, and CIA burglar Tommy Carmellini, he raids the prisons to assemble his team while the clock ticks toward Armageddon.

Former naval aviator Stephen Coonts flew combat missions during the Vietnam War. A graduate of West Virginia University and a former attorney, Coonts is the author of several New York Times bestsellers, including America and Saucer, which have been translated and republished around the world. He lives in Nevada with his wife and son.