Demon in the Hole — Richard A. Thompson

The demon has waited a long time. Hidden away in a location so secret, even the President doesn't know about it, the demon has outlasted its creators and its keepers and become lost to human memory. But now it has been foundâ€"â€"and it will soon bring mankind to the brink of nuclear Armageddon.

Douglas Wright is an unemployed aerospace engineer. Broke, divorced, homeless, and bitter, he has no idea where to turn next. Two very different and powerful men, both utterly ruthless, are ready to tell him. Ben Savitch, a former wheat farmer turned bank robber and anarchist, offers Wright a million and a half dollars to re-awaken the demon. The other man, known only as Mr. Black, is the enigmatic head of a rogue agency within Homeland Security.

Wright thinks both men are insane. He would like to collect the one-point-five mil, but he would also like to avoid starting World War III. But the cost of disobeying either of his new masters is death. On the run from both of them, he must find a way to get the money, get the wolves to devour each other, and live to tell about it.