In Maryland, welder Jack Hummel is abducted from his suburban home and whisked to the South Mountain MX missile site: a top-secret nuclear complex now taken over by paramilitary terrorists. Their mission: to unleash 35 megatons of nuclear doom in a devastatingly brilliant plot that threatens global disaster. All that stands between the Uzi-armed commandos and the launch button is a half-ton titanium block. They want Jack Hummel to cut through it.
But even as his torch burns closer to the launch key, a Delta Force veteran and a think-tank defense wizard are hard at work, trying to get inside South Mountain by defeating their own super-security systems, straining to stop the clock¿and Armageddon.