Katherine Cahill's life is shattered forever when her three young children are killed on an airplane that is blown to pieces by a terrorist bomb in the skies over Italy. Determined to make the terrorists pay for this savagery, Katherine circumvents the frustrating bureaucracy of the State Department and heads for Syria in search of their leader, Tayib.

She joins forces with Donna Winn, whose husband has been taken hostage, and with Sam Gaddis, a photo-journalist familiar with the country and its people. This unlikely group infiltrates the terrorist's mountain fortress and becomes entangled in power struggles within the Islamic Jihad and a secret U.S. plan to capture Tayib alive and bring him to justice.