Over the bloody and dusty sands known as the Shatt el Arab, Saddam Hussein, embittered by the Gulf War, and Ayatollah Kambiz Abbasi, struggling to recover from a nuclear event, plot to punish America and Russia.
      The hollowed out Russian Army is bogged down in a dirty little war to suppress the Chechen rebellion, and Abbasi, in the spirit of Islamic fundamentalism, recruits Parvez Hyder—an American ex-patriate—to assassinate President Vladimir Putin. Captain Eduard Gurov is recalled from Chechnya's bloody fields to hunt down Parvez Hyder before he can complete his calamitous mission. The Russian leadership sends a butcher to hunt down a freedom fighter.
      Home-grown terrorist groups bent on anarchy contract Damon Layne to bring their ill-conceived battle to Washington, D.C. Layne decides to make this his last mission as he cautiously emerges from hiding. The FBI's Domestic Terrorism Unit scrambles to catch up.
      Jim Harper and Darby Hayes, battered and bruised from action in the Panama Canal Zone, take up the hunt for Layne. The journey takes Harper beyond the law as he seeks to render justice in a world without rules.