On a clear day in April, terrorists in a commandeered Saudi airliner divert from their flight path in a suicide mission to detonate a nuclear device directly over the White House. Aboard Air Force One over the nation?s heartland, the President learns of the air-burst but not its perpetrators ? and presses the button that starts the Forty-Minute War. The disastrous exchange that follows leaves the U.S. and U.S.S.R reeling. Half a world away, in Israel, the grim survivors of the CIA?s covert action force commit to a desperate plan. It offers hope in the midst of despair ? for if the Americans are successful, their country and the world will live again. AN ACT OF TERRORISM SET IT OFF. AND A TOP-SECRET PROJECT BURIED IN THE ASHES OF WASHINGTON IS THE WORLD?S ONLY HOPE. a disastrous nuclear exchange and a global landscape forever changed. The U.S. and Russia are reeling, the rest of the world in turmoil. But there is hope in the midst of despair. In Israel, Marc Beck of the U.S. State Department?s Bureau of Intelligence and Research organizes a salvage operation called ?Tie-breaker.? Under the radioactive remains of CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, lies a top-secret project that can literally give the human race a new lease on life ? if Beck?s agents can reach it alive.