ON SEPTEMBER 28, 2009, terrorists decapitate the government with an atomic bomb. Washington is destroyed. America's weapons labs quickly identify the attacker and instantly bury their findings.

A SURVIVOR, an investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jackson Guild, flies west to the high mesas of New Mexico to dig into the coverup. His companions? The scars of war, and a trail of whisky bottles.

GUILD'S AGGRESSIVE PURSUIT of answers morphs into an affair with the high priestess of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Alessandra Almont, a moon-shot of a scientist bent on destroying herself. Her efforts to find the truth about the attack end in the development of a fourth generation atomic weapon ...a device that makes nuclear war possible. The discovery shatters her. And Guild finds that bit by bit they're both caught up in an operation called Modular Dog, the assassination of Russia's President, believed to have ordered Washington's destruction.

GUILD RECOGNIZES HIS AGENDA and sees his fate: Why would the secret weapons labs bury the truth? Why would assassinating Vladimir Putin make a difference? And why can't he right a hideous wrong and avoid certain tragedy?"