The First Casualty — Gregg Loomis

Armed with a powerful laser, a terrorist group threatens the US -- and one government agent must race to recover the weapon before it's too late

Air France Flight 447 is high above the Atlantic, making its way through a patch of turbulence, when its instruments begin to fail. Pilot and crew fight to regain control as the plane plummets from the sky, but death comes before they even hit the water. When investigators pick through the wrecked aircraft and desiccated bodies, they can reach only one conclusion: Flight 447 disintegrated in mid-air.

The cause was a laser, the likes of which the world has never known. Based on the mad dreams of Nikola Tesla, the weapon's destructive powers are immeasurable, and it has fallen into the hands of Al Qaeda -- or its allies. It's up to Jason Peters -- a highly trained government operative who was beginning to get bored with his retirement -- to recover the laser to safety. Ending this threat will force him to shed quite a bit of terrorist blood, but Peters has never minded getting dirty for the sake of Uncle Sam.