After narrowly bringing USS Horn through a nuclear attack off Israel, Lenson, on light duty while recovering from his injuries, is tapped to serve on the military staff of President Robert "Bad Bob" De Bari. Is it an honor? Or the death knell for his career? He's not really sure.
But he'll do his duty nonetheless. Never one to settle for pushing paper, or for following accepted procedure, Lenson plunges into his job as Director of Counternarcotics Interdiction on the National Security Council Staff. His first challege is the Cartel's assassination of the son of the new president of Colombia -- a death the Cartel hopes to pin on the US Air Force. He's barely gotten a lid on this when his staff uncovers a frightening terrorist plot: a dirty bomb, smuggled into America via clandestine drug channels and loaded onto an air freight flight. Meanwhile, an even greater threat is building inside the United States government itself. When Dan becomes the aide carrying the codes to unleash nuclear war, and a deeply unpopular De Bari enrages both the Cartel and nakedly ambitious elements in the US government, Dan himself becomes an unwitting accomplice in a plot to kill the President -- and the only one who can possibly halt it.