From her first day in the Oval Office, Maddie Turner has had to deal with bitter challenges from Congress and duplicity from within the ranks of the Cabinet she inherited from her late predecessor. Now catastrophe is brewing in the East China Sea. Chinese and Japanese fleets are set to collide in the biggest naval engagement since World War Two. And a single false step could result in Turner's impeachment. . .or, worse still, in nuclear war. An untried leader with enemies on all sides must now reach out to her one true ally: National Security Advisor General Robert Bender, a loyal soldier determined to teach his president in record time everything he knows about swift, decisive action and bare-knuckling battling. . .even if it costs his career, and his life, to do so.