A Boeing/McDonnell-Douglas MD-11 jetliner crashes into the Gulf of Mexico a mile inside Cuban waters, killing all three hundred and twenty passengers onboard. The last three minutes on the plane’s cockpit voice and data recorders have been erased. Was this a massive mechanical failure or an act of terrorism? At an air terrorism conference, FBI agent Kat Bronsky learns Washington Post reporter Robert McCabe has received frightening information about the MD-11 crash from a source that mysteriously disappeared. When another airliner goes down after its pilots are flash-blinded midflight, Bronsky and McCabe find themselves at the center of what might be a deadly government cover-up.