Army investigator Captain Ben Hawkins discovers that several pounds of the powerful nerve toxin VX-212 can't be accounted for at the Army facility responsible for destroying chemical munitions. Soon an FBI team is searching for Mahmoud, who can't forget his father's fate in the Iraq-Iran war, and Saman, whose parents were on Iran Flight 655, shot down by the American cruiser, the USS Vincennes. Their hatred of the country they blame for their losses leads them to the United States for revenge. Their scheme uses the same weapons the United States went to war to find--chemical weapons of mass destruction. The weapons didn't come from Iraq, though, but from the stockpiles of chemical weapons developed and stored in the United States. Colonel Kashani, a senior Iranian intelligence officer, stumbles upon the plan, and he understands the dangers of enraging the American dragon. His challenge is to stop a terrorist plot without being ensnared by the FBI investigators trying to locate him. The Army investigator has his own choices, including whether to risk his career and possible arrest in an attempt to stop the attack, even if it means working with a foreign agent. The action moves from Spain to Washington, D.C., Iran to Texas, and to small towns in Alabama and Virginia. The story is especially timely in view of recent events in Iran and Washington .