It's a blood-chilling, all-to-plausible question, and one only Larry Bond dares to ask: What if the world's wealthiest man were also the world's deadliest terrorist?

A plane carrying an American arms inspection team mysteriously crashes in Russia. Not long afterward, a senior American diplomat is assassinated. The warning shots have been fired. A bold gambit to destroy America as a world power is well under way.

Its architect is Prince Ibrahim al Saud, a member of the Middle East's most influential royal family and the head of a multibillion-dollar global conglomerate. He is also "The Paymaster." With his vast wealth, he bankrolls the most lethal terrorist groups on earth to launch the most murderous attack ever conceived. Against Ibrahim and his allies stand two veteran American operatives listeners will remember from The Enemy Within: U.S. Army Colonel Peter Thorn and FBI Special Agent Helen Gray. Together they follow Ibrahim's scheme from Russia, across Europe, and finally home to America -- all the while on the run from the very people they're fighting to protect.

Ibrahim plans to wreak devastation on the United States in a single, apocalyptic millisecond, altering history forever. And he knows that Thorn and Gray, though formidable, are still human. They can be trapped, caught, and killed. The Operation is in its final moments. Now nothing can stop it....

Gray and Thorn have led cases together before, although this time they've both been instructed by the U.S. government to take secondary roles to the Russian task force investigating the crash site. By nature, Thorn and Gray can't sit on the sidelines for long, and within a few days they have found inconsistencies in the case. Deciding to investigate further, they manage to attract the attention of the Russian police, a German ex-Stasi, and the U.S. government, all of whom, for their own reasons, want the pair off the case.

But the twosome agree that the case can't be closed. If their hunch is correct, it appears that someone has stolen a Russian nuclear warhead. By going undercover, the two have a chance to avert a potential catastrophe, although it means directly disobeying government orders. As a result, they must finish the investigation alone. Colonel Thorn will soon find himself in situations that draw on his years of training in armed combat (as well as skills honed playing flight simulation computer games!).

Though Day of Wrath does have its clichéd moments and awkward dialogue, the book is made interesting by Bond's knowledge of nuclear warfare and intelligence strategy. Anyone with a head for military hardware and a penchant for post-Cold War intrigue will enjoy this technothriller. --Kris Law