Erasmus Levine has a job like no other. He travels with the President of the United States at all times, and holds in his hands the power to obliterate life as we know it.

Levine is the man with the nuclear briefcase, part of a crack team of top-secret operatives established after 9/11, led by a man code- named Edelweiss. But not even Edelweiss knows the identity of their ultimate authority, Alpha.

But Levine has a secret, for years he has been receiving cryptic messages from Alpha, an elaborate communication that began with the words: "we two against the world." Now he's thinking of escape and his chance comes during an official visit to Sweden.

But Alpha has other plans. From their first meeting in a network of tunnels and bunkers beneath the city, Levine is drawn into a plan to eliminate the world's nuclear arsenals. But is controlled demolition really the endgame? Could he be working towards a controlled apocalypse designed to wipe humanity from the face of the earth?