On a quiet park bench in Manhattan---just miles from the ruins of the World Trade Center---spymaster Jake Janos Illin delivers a chilling secret message to Jake Grafton: A rogue Russian general has sold four nuclear warheads to a radical Islamic terrorist group, the Sword of Islam. The group intends to detonate them in America in the ultimate terror strike, the apocalypse that will trigger a holy war between Western civilization and the Muslim world. After passing Illin’s message to his superiors, Grafton is charged by the president with the task of assembling a secret team to find the warheads before America’s population centers are consumed by a nuclear holocaust. As he hunts for the terrorists, Grafton soon finds himself up to his neck in power politics, techno-billionaires, money-grubbing traitors, anarchists, and spies. He also discovers that the terrorists don’t all come from the Middle East. They come from places close to home. They masquerade as patriots. Some may even have the president’s ear. With the survival of Western civilization at stake, Grafton pulls out all the stops. Calling on the assistance of the indomitable Toad Tarkington, and CIA burglar Tommy Carmellini, he raids the prisons to assemble his team while the clock ticks toward Armageddon. Peopled with the rich, vivid characters that have made Stephen Coonts famous worldwide, Liberty is all action and suspense from the very first page. And it poses the unanswerable question: How far should civilization go to defend itself from its mortal enemies? In Coonts' eleventh novel, the hero is Rear Admiral Jake Grafton, and his assignment--big surprise!--is to stop the unthinkable before it's too late. Written after the September 11 attacks on New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, the plot involves a terrorist network that possesses nuclear weapons that may be used against the U.S. Grafton, who works for the FBI/CIA Joint Antiterrorism Task Force, discovers that a Russian general who "doesn't hate America, but loves money" has sold four missile warheads to a group called the Sword of Islam for $2 million. The plot continues through a series of mostly violent encounters in such varied places as Cairo, Florida, and New York City, and on a mysterious freighter, Olympic Voyager . The book's title suggests its conclusion: two men spotted on the balcony of the Statue of Liberty's torch. By the time readers get to that point, they will have enjoyed an exciting romp. Librarians beware. This latest Coonts yarn undoubtedly will make the best-seller lists. George Cohen Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "Griping...the action is slam-bang."- -Publishers Weekly "Frightening realistic."- -Maxim Magazine "Coonts knows how to write and build suspense."-- The New York Times Book Review Former naval aviator Stephen Coonts flew combat missions during the Vietnam War. A graduate of West Virginia University and a former attorney, Coonts is the author of nine N ew York Times bestselling novels, which have been translated and republished around the world. He lives in Nevada with his wife and son. CHAPTER ONEThe tall, lean man walked out the entrance of the United Nations building in Manhattan and paused at the top of the main staircase to extract a cigarette from a metal case. He wore a dark gray suit of an expensive cut and a deep blue silk tie. Over that he wore a well-tailored wool coat. He lit his cigarette, snapped the lighter shut, and descended the staircase.He joined the throngs on the sidewalk and walked purposefully, taking no more note of his fellow pedestrians than any other New Yorker. He turned westward on East Forty-sixth Street, which was one-way eastbound and choked with traffic, as usual. Striding along with the pace of a man who has a destination but is not late, he crossed Second, Third, Lexington and Park Avenues, and turned north on Madison.On Forty-eighth, he turned west again. Crossing Fifth Avenue, he took no notice of the crowds or people in front of the plaza at Rockefeller Center, but walked steadily through them, ditched his cigarette at the door of the NBC building—he was on his third by then—and went inside. Seven minutes later he was on the Rockefeller Center subway platform. He stepped aboard a southbound F train just before the doors closed and grabbed a bar near the door. The train got under way immediately.As the train roared through darkness, the tall man casually examined the faces of his fellow passengers, then stood at ease holding the metal bar. He watched with no apparent interest as people got on and off the train at each stop.In Brooklyn he exited the train, climbed to the street and immediately went back down into the subway station. In minutes he was aboard another F train heading north, back into Manhattan.This time he exited the train at Grand Street in Little Italy. Up on the sidewalk, he began walking south. An hour later the tall man passed the entrance of th