While our nation is locked in a war of words with the North Korean regime, little attention is being focused on a more insidious but just as deadly threat.

Pakistan, a U.S. nuclear-armed ally, welcomes aid dollars while providing safe haven for terrorists. It is a fragile relationship marked by duplicity…a relationship that could go south any moment.

26 Kilograms takes the reader on a non-stop thrill-ride that begins with the clandestine transfer of nuclear material from a secure Pakistani army installation thirty miles north of Islamabad to a group of radical Islamists bent on the destruction of the West. It culminates in the streets of New York — minutes before the impending detonation of a fifteen-kiloton nuclear bomb.

The city’s survival hinges on one man, Commander John Hart, and his ability to ferret out the perpetrators, discern where the weapon is hidden, and disable it before midnight December 31. Hart must rely on equal measures of brawn, brain, and prayer to stop the cadre of jihadists whose plan has been in the making for sixteen years.

Should he fail, the job of healing America’s mortal wound will fall squarely on the shoulders of Dr. Elizabeth Wilkins. It’s a job she didn’t ask for, and hopes never materializes.

John Leifer