At Stalin's orders two teams of scientists and engineers competed to demonstrate the Soviet Union's first atomic bomb. Failure was not an option, and the loosing team was purged with no warning. Its records destroyed, and all of the key personnel eliminated, well, almost all. What happened to the team's work in progress? Forty years later, The Group discovers the answer. The "Rings of Allah" is a grand saga in the genre of James Clavell's, "Shogun" and "Tia-Pan", with a little Clancy thrown in. Spanning over sixty years the story sweeps across Russia, central Asia, and into the United States. The cast of characters includes Soviet scientists, radical Islamist, KGB officers, Al-Qaeda terrorists, Osama bin Laden, and American businessmen, doctors, and government officials. Islam, Wahhabism, and the Soviet-Afghan war, provide the backdrop for the birth of Al-Qaeda. The story proceeds into the future where a sleeper cell of Al-Qaeda attempts to complete Osama bin Laden's master plan for the final strike against the Great Satan. This epic novel presents a realistic and frightening picture of how simple atomic weapons could be smuggled into and hidden in the US.;The author has the background and knowledge to write a realistic, technically sound story that will leave no doubt as to the vulnerability of western civilization to terrorism and the threat of weapons of mass destruction. Yes, it can be done, and the "Rings of Allah" provides a thrilling and realistic story of one such plan. The main characters include an old but sharp Soviet nuclear weapons engineer; an idealistic young American Arab drawn into the Afghanistan Jihad who later becomes a conflicted soul; the American educated Al-Qaeda cell leader who slowly slips into insanity; a beautiful blond venture capitalists, who is unwittingly ensnarled into the terrorist plot; and an enterprising KGB officer and member of The Group.