"Countdown to Armageddon," by Edward M. Lerner:
Hezbollah has obtained an atomic bomb and a would-be martyr eager to deliver it-and that's the good news. The bad news, unknown even to Hezbollah, is that their physicist has also found a way to take his new bomb back to a turning point in European history.
Harry Bowen, an American physicist, and Terrence Ambling, a British agent turned historian, are determined to stop Abdul Faisel and prevent the nullification of all Western civilization. Their mission can be accomplished, if at all, only in the darkest of the Dark Ages-
And there, too, time is running out.
"A Stranger in Paradise," by Edward M. Lerner, collects five of the bestselling author's science fiction stories: "The Night of the RFIDs," "Two kinds of People," "Better the Devil You Know," "Small Business," and "A Stranger in Paradise."