The sword of Orion

by Robin A. White

Afghan "soldiers of God" bring the world to the edge of nuclear Armageddon when they steal a Russian hydrogen bomb, vowing to detonate it if the West fails to comply with their demands. At stake is a vast strategic territory: the rich but unstable states of the Islamic Arc, from Africa through the Middle East and Pakistan and ultimately the seething Moslem enclaves of the former Soviet Union. Only a handful of people know how to recover the warhead before the rebels unleash the powers of the twenty-first century in the name of their thousand-year-old struggle: a U.S. Navy nuclear detection team, flying a highly modified P-3 Orion commanded by an American man and woman, and a retired Russian Special Forces captain with painful firsthand experience in the uncharted wilds of Afghanistan. Together they must outwit the soldiers of God, Russian opportunists, and American intelligence operatives who turn their backs on their own secret war. In a desperate final battle fought deep inside one o