A megalomaniac sheikh, vanishing Russian scientists, and missing uranium add up to a dreaded spectre: a terrorist-controlled thermonuclear bomb smuggled into the United States. It is the first decade of the twenty-first century. To commemorate the new millennium, a renegade sheikh has declared an all-out Jihad—a Holy War—against the Great Satan, the United States. And now he is no longer limited to blowing up embassies and trade centers with mere chemical explosives. By joining forces with a Russian subversive organization, he obtains top Russian atomic scientists and nuclear warhead uranium. The result is the development of the first thermonuclear bomb to be in terrorist hands. The mysterious disappearance of Russia's foremost nuclear physicist sets an agent of Russia's Federal Security Service on the trail of the sheikh and the missing uranium. He is soon joined by an agent of America's National Security Agency, who is trying to solve the brutal and mysterious murder of the CEO of an American uranium importing company. The trail leads them to the mountains of Afghanistan, the deserts of Sudan, and the islands of the Caribbean before the final, thrilling denouement. Along the way, the reader is treated to espionage, romance, betrayal, pitched battles, and twists and turns that reveal a deeper meaning than perhaps was first suspected in the word, Jihad.