Andres Kudirka, a once brilliant scientist now headed toward drug-induced insanity, worked on the original A-bomb at Los Alamos and witnessed a test blast in the Pacific where innocent islanders were killed. As chief engineer for Neutron Two, the nation's first commercial fast-breeder reactor nuclear power plant near Denver, Kudirka harbors a deep resentment toward his employers and the United States, and now plans to destroy Neutron Two, unleashing a holocaust that would kill millions of people. Kudirka is troubled by a deep guilt he cannot handle. He has never been able to escape the memory of the "routine test" in the Pacific that annihilated an island. He cannot forget the young girl who came crying out of the devastation of her home, the lone survivor and now his wife, Mariko. Pursuing him is federal investigator Yale Pollack, who is determined to expose Kudirka's past. And Kudirka is desperate enough to stop Pollack using the only means at his disposal-the unimaginable power of a nuclear reactor gone wild close to a major American city housing millions of unsuspecting and unprepared citizens. Can Pollack, or anyone else, stop him in time?