Countdown to Mecca
(Book)

A plane bound for Amman, Jordan, goes down in the Caspian Sea. The crash yields no survivors--save the Russian mercenary who hijacked the flight--and a cask containing an agent of unprecedented destructive potential is missing from the wreckage. A carefully plotted terrorist attack has been put into motion, and the resulting chaos might be enough to push America toward another costly war. The one man who might be able to stop the attack is Jack Hatfield, a freelance reporter who has never shied away from controversy. After making a politically incorrect statement about Islamic extremists, he has been discredited as a journalist and left to pick up the pieces of his career. But when his half-brother Sammy calls him, saying that his neighbor Ana overheard something she shouldn't have and now both their lives are in danger, Jack realizes he's stumbled upon a conspiracy to destroy Mecca. Now he and a group of like-minded friends on the fringes of the law must uncover who is behind the plot and stop them--or else witness the collapse of the world.