A transport plane carrying an important Taliban detainee for interrogation is shot down in a blizzard over the Hindu Kush. The storm makes rescue impossible, and for two people - navigator Michael Parson and a woman Army interpreter, Sergeant Gold - a battle for survival begins across some of the most forbidding terrain on earth, against not only the hazards of nature, but the treacheries of man: the Taliban stalking them; the villagers, whose loyalty...

A jihadist leader has seized a supply of sarin gas and is wreaking havoc. Marine gunnery sergeant A. E. Blount, the grandson of one of the first black Marines, sets out with his strike force to kill or capture the terrorist. Several Marines are killed, some are captured, and the jihadist promises that unless forces withdraw, he will execute one prisoner a day. Immediately, Blount's friends and colleagues Sophia Gold, now with the U.N., and Lieutenant...