The warning lights are all blinking red again. Intelligence reports...chatter... sources. Have terrorists smuggled enough Highly Enriched Uranium out of Russia to fashion two Hiroshima-style atomic bombs? And are they planning to detonate them in New York and London on Christmas Day (Threat 1), or a few days earlier on Friday (Threat 2)? As the FBI Director brilliantly observes, “They can’t both be true, or else the Christmas bombers would be blown up by the Friday bombers. Or am I missing something?” No, the Beltway and Whitehall savants insist, these “converging threat streams” are probably just another fear-inducing intelligence operation by the Kremlin. But a Superintendent in Special Branch and her neophyte Oxford intelligence analyst ignore the geo-politics and dig hard for clues, while under-staffed burned-out counterterrorism investigators in wintry Brooklyn appear ill-prepared for the wickedness coming their way. And when multiple sources warn Special Agent Mike Quinn and his partner, NYPD Detective Bernie Gilliam, the tip of the spear for the FBI’s Threat Squad, that the securities markets are tanking in anticipation of Armageddon, they decide to spend less time in bars despite the assessment of the Squad’s intelligence analyst that “if we’re all that stands between Al Qaeda and a nuclear holocaust, New York is truly f*cked.” All these characters inhabit a messy reality where state-of-the-art gadgets/systems don’t always work, investigators are often less than thorough, and executives seem more intent on ranking threats than neutralizing them. And their heroism is not found in courting danger ( God, no!) but in remaining dutiful amidst the daily slog, trying to see the humor in workplace absurdities (aside from NYC or London traffic where no amount of humor will help). As the clock ticks down to zero hour, Quinn and Gilliam struggle to control their drinking and anger, hold onto their families, and light a candle rather than curse the descending gloom, hoping that the afore-mentioned candle will eventually be migrated to a law-enforcement-friendly bar for celebratory rounds. But in the end, amidst the December death of light on both sides of the Atlantic, intelligence assessments give way to bulletproof vests, prayers in the snow and a reluctant resolve to at least go down swinging. "Lordy, I hope there's a tape of this book!" - Jim Comey "A book for the ages...or at least this evening perhaps...Nice blizzard cover." - John le Carré's Cousin "Thanks for leaving me out of this one, Joe." - Robert (Bobby Three Sticks) Mueller "Let me make this perfectly clear. Just because we cleared this book by a retired FBI guy for publication doesn't mean that we think you should buy it." - FBI Prepublication Guy "No 'duets'...I do not get this." - Vladimir Putin "Bin Laden's dead? That explains a lot." - Donald Trump "The FBI prepublication reviews suck!" - Marjorie Taylor Greene "I invented atomic duets back in my musical days but then I moved on to nuclear physics!" - George Santos