For thirty-year-old captain Scott McKay, the transport run from Miami to Denver will give him the money he desperately needs to keep his fledgling air cargo company flying. When a mysterious crate is discovered on his plane, however, McKay is ordered to abandon his present course and fly the crate and its owner, Vivian Henry, to Washington, D.C., before going to Denver. McKay takes the forced detour in stride - until a strange noise comes from deep inside the crate. It is the voice of Vivian's husband, Dr. Rogers Henry, warning that the shipment they are carrying is actually a fully armed Medusa device, a thermonuclear bomb that can destroy every computer chip over an entire continent, and blast the Silicon Age back to the Stone Age. And it is set to go off within hours.

As panic spreads from the small community of nuclear scientists who used to work for Dr. Rogers Henry to the White House and eventually to the general public, a group of rogue military officers conspires to disobey the President's orders and secure the technology of the Medusa device, whatever the cost. Will Captain McKay and his crew trust their own instincts to dispose of the bomb, or will they let a misguided government dictate their actions?