Lydia Lozen Magruder has seen visions of the End since childhood. After carving out a worldwide media empire, she constructed a massive ranch-fortress in the American Southwest, stocked with everything necessary to rebuild civilization.
Now her visions are coming true. A report from famous gonzo journalist John Stone has her trembling with fear. Stone revealed a grand plan to blast humanity back to the Stone Age--and then vanished. Lydia's only hope of tracking him down lies with her stubborn, globe-trotting daughter, Kate, who last saw Stone, her former lover, in Mecca during Hajj.
The world is armed for self-destruction, awash in enough nuclear bomb fuel for forty thousand Hiroshimas. Someone pushses the button. Who will survive?