Critiques en avant-première

Caleb Young, intent on preventing nuclear war, must balance each side’s perceived balance of power, but to do so, he must “shade” his NIE by inflating Soviet capabilities to forestall an effort by the Strategic Air Command (SAC) to launch a preemptive first strike that would annihilate 300 hundred million civilians.

When the U-2 flights from July 5, 1956, through May 1, 1960, fail to confirm a bomber or missile gap, the national security establishment begins to suspect that Caleb has deliberately falsified his reports.

After John F. Kennedy is assassinated in November 1963, Caleb begins to publicly criticize the composition of the Warren Commission, which upsets President Lyndon Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover, and U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach who are attempting to minimize any Cuban or Russian involvement to avoid an international incident. But the three are curious about what CIA Director John McCone is not telling them about Oswald’s activities in Mexico City and believe Caleb knows how the CIA has conducted paramilitary operations in the Philippines and Guatemala, among other locations.

Katzenbach instructs the head of his criminal intelligence division, William E. Forde (fictional), to impanel a Grand Jury and issue an office subpoena to rein in Caleb’s public statements and follow the money trail where the CIA has toppled legitimate democratic regimes. Over the next ten months, Forde deposes Caleb and is tasked with developing a complete profile of him, including his childhood years and education. Caleb delays and obfuscates to protect Forde and his family from the Agency’s counterintelligence unit.

The final 100 pages of Book III take place in 2028 when a conflict between China and the United States takes center stage over a 092 Xia class submarine the Chinese sold to North Korea in 2024. That increases tension with the United States over Naval operations in the Taiwan Straits. The submarine fires on the United States, and the United States retaliates by sinking several Chinese ships. The Chinese seek to allay Putin’s fears over environmental damage, but Putin refuses based on advice from his scientific community. The Chinese launch on the United States, and the new US ABM system is severely tested. Even though the United States escapes major damage, the debris and residue lofted into the atmosphere by the explosions from more than 500 450-kiloton warheads, launched by just four Ohio class submarines on China, result in a nuclear famine across almost the entire surface of Earth.