New threats require new weapons. New villains require new heroes.

The time is the near future. Osama Bin Laden has been succeeded by a generation of even deadlier terrorists who will stop at nothing in their fanatical quest to destroy the United States. Conventional security is no longer enough. Former military pilots Scott Dalton and Jackie Sullivan are the government's newest weapons-operatives so secret that their very existence is denied by the officials who hired them. Armed with the most up-to-date technology and equipment, their mission is to prevent a plan of nuclear holocaust that will begin at the Canadian border and explode in the centers of American power.

They have their work cut out for them.

Foremost among their foes are Saeed Shayhidi, a billionaire Iranian "businessman" and mass murderer, far more sophisticated and sadistic than Bin Laden himself; Khaliq Farkas, a mysterious and ever-elusive terrorist, bearing a barbaric grudge; and Zheng-Yen Tsung, the powerful Chinese official who may be the mastermind behind it all.

From a shocking sarin attack on a legendary ocean liner to the stalking of chemical plants and oil refineries by aircraft filled with explosives, no attack is too insidious, no symbol of strength and freedom immune. For Dalton and Sullivan, their expertise has never been more necessary-their bravery never more needed-than in a world where unrepentant evil requires an assured response.