A motor launch carrying the USS Ronald Reagan's top brass is attacked. Everyone on board is killed, including two admirals and a U.S. ambassador. The U.S. vows a swift reprisal.

Enter squadron skipper Brick Maxwell and his Roadrunners—the F/A-18 Hornet strike fighter pilots aboard the Reagan. Their mission: strike deep in northern Yemen's highlands. The target: Colonel Jamal Al-Fasr, the charismatic commander who has masterminded the plot to kill the Americans.

Al-Fasr is also a skilled fighter pilot who learned his craft in the U.S. He has laid a deadly trap for Maxwell and the warriors of the Reagan Strike Group. The danger lies not only in the hills of Yemen. Lurking beneath the surface of the Arabian Sea is an ex-Russian Kilo submarine, whose mission is to sink the Reagan...