The Taliban started in the 1960's with Saudi and American support in our fight with the Soviets ...Our story continues

​​THE RINGS OF ARMAGEDDON   From the dry mesa’s of Los Alamos to the dangerous mountains along the Afghan-Pakistan border, The Rings of Armageddon is a fast paced thriller from the author of the Phoenix Year.  Secrets from the past must remain hidden if General Helmut Reinhardt the soon to retire Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,  winner of two Congressional Medals of Honors for daring rescues in the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, is to become the next President of the United States.  Deeply buried in his command biography is his four years leading the American mission to the Afghan Mujahedeen where he worked closely with the future leader of Al Qaeda and the Taliban?   The second secret is far more dangerous to the stability of the world system of nuclear deterrence. Just after 2001 he was asked by the new administration to develop an ultra-secret weapons system, NorthStar, a polar orbiting stealth satellite with 50 nuclear weapons with the command and control in a portable computer terminal.   After the Secretary of Defense realized the mistake he’d made in approving NorthStar, and the danger that NorthStar represented, he ordered the console placed in the JCS vault at the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon and the nine rings needed to initiate a launch distributed to the only nine men who knew the true purpose of the NorthStar system. Now, more than ten years later, questions are being asked about Project NorthStar that General Reinhardt can’t afford to answer.  Reinhardt also discovers that a few of the scientists who worked on the development of the system are beginning to talk openly, he acts to silence them and gather up the rings and the console as insurance for some future emergency.     When Ali Hassan, Qatari banker, secret financier of terrorists groups and long-time friend of the General, learns of NorthStar and the likelihood that his old comrade from their days working closely together in Afghanistan may be the key to turning Al Qaeda into a nuclear power, he develops a plan to force the General to bring the terminal to him in their old camp high in the mountains of Eastern Afghanistan.   Ali Hassan gathers leaders from more than twenty major terrorist groups together to witness the handover of the NorthStar terminal to his control; he makes an ultimatum to the United States demanding a complete withdrawal from the Middle East.   To demonstrate his resolve, he starts a countdown launching a warhead against a target somewhere in the United States.   As the countdown clock ticks towards zero,  broadcast live to the world, the President of the United States must decide if General Reinhardt is a traitor or possibly, just possibly, a hero.