What happens if both the president and vice-president-elect die before taking the oath of office? The answer is far from certain??in fact?? what follows would be nothing short of total political chaos.

Shot down over Siberia?? ex-Justice Department agent Cotton Malone is forced into a fight for survival against Aleksandr Zorin?? a man whose loyalty to the former Soviet Union has festered for decades into an intense hatred of the United States.

Before escaping?? Malone learns that Zorin and another ex-KGB officer?? this one a sleeper still embedded in the West?? are headed overseas to Washington D.C. Noon on January 20th??Inauguration Day??is only hours away. A flaw in the Constitution?? and an even more flawed presidential succession act?? have opened the door to disaster and Zorin intends to exploit both weaknesses to their fullest.

Armed with a weapon leftover from the Cold War?? on