Forced to resign after being wrongly scapegoated for a tragic midair collision, former Navy TOPGUN instructor Luke Henry has opened a private aerial combat training school in the Nevada desert—with the aid of a cadre of former aces and full support of the government. But the Defense Department’s contract comes with strings attached: Luke must train a handpicked group of pilots from the Pakistani Air Force in Russian MiG-29s that the U.S. has supplied. These suspicious foreign nationals are being placed at the controls of one of the world’s most potent aerial weapons, and it’s Luke’s job to make them proficient. But the strangers have a secret agenda that strikes directly at the vulnerable heart of their American benefactors, a nightmarish scenario of devastation that Luke Henry must expose and combat—in the skies above his nation, if necessary

The president rushes across the South Lawn through a pounding thunderstorm to Marine One to fly to Camp David late at night. His advisers plead with him not to fly, but he insists. He has arranged a meeting that only three people in his administration know about. After fighting its way through the brutal thunderstorm on the way to Camp David, Marine One crashes into a ravine in Maryland, killing all aboard. The government blames the European manufacturer of the helicopter and accuses them of killing the president. Senate Investigations and Justice Department accusations multiply as Mike Nolan, a Marine Corps reserve helicopter pilot and trial attorney in civilian life, is hired to defend the company from the criminal investigations, then from a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the most notorious lawyer in America on behalf of the First Lady. Nolan knows that to prevail in the firestorm against his client, he has to find out what really caused Marine One to crash, and why the president threw caution aside to go to a meeting no one seems to know about. To clear his client, Nolan must win the highest-profile trial of the last hundred years with very little working for him, and everything working against him. Marine One expertly mixes political intrigue with courtroom drama and fast-paced action in the most exciting thriller of the year