When Na’il Miraj arrives at an al Qaeda recruiting station in Paris, he is seen by the organization’s leaders as a gift from Allah. Their hope is that the former U.S. Army missile repair technician could turn their horde of out-of-date Stinger missiles into functioning weapons.

The discovery of Stinger missiles that failed to fire in a farmer’s field in North Texas in the fall of 2016 should have set off alarm bells within the last few months of a lame duck administration. But they didn’t.

There were those in the CIA who thought differently. Derek Almer is encouraged to start a small think tank by a friend in the CIA to research the threat of man portable, shoulder mounted surface-to-air missiles known by the acronym MANPADS. Helped by a little luck and intelligence from his contacts within the Mossad, Derek’s firms learns that the terrorist group has smuggled Russian-made Igla-S’s, as well as Stingers, into the U.S. Miraj’s plan—shoot down enough airliners to kill thousands and shut down the world’s air transportation system.

The question Derek Almer has to answer is when and where will the missiles be used?