Iran is a tightly restricted, closed society-a situation that Jack Abramian, a superrich Californian with Armenian roots and business interests, desperately wants to change. From his huge industrial base in southern Armenia he conceives Operation Snowdrop, in which a handful of daredevil pilots drop 10 million ready-to-use mobile phones that float down on little parachutes on Iranian cities. Programmed with messages of freedom, they are an immediate challenge to the Mullahs’ control, something that unsettles the country overnight. A hardcore group within the regime, however, fights back: first they stun the world with a nuclear explosion in the remote province of Baluchistan, then they initiate a plan to attack Israel with nuclear-armed missiles purchased from the dangerous Russian oligarch Oleg Nedjew.

Can Jack Abramian free Armenia from international isolation by opening up Iran? Can hectic preparations by Iran to nuke Israel be stopped? Can pretty, young Sophie Kramer-who worked with the Zurich bank that launders Oleg Nedjew’s arms-deal billions, and finds herself catapulted into the center of this deadly plot-outrun a ruthless hired killer? Will she finally prevail with the help of a few trusted friends in a breathless race against the clock?