Hastings spews up from the depths of the CIA, as one of the contingency plans devised 'just in case' about which elected officials from Congressman to the Presidency are kept in the dark, and which are never seen except by their inventors. William Daniels a CIA defector to the Russians has taken with him Hastings as a gift to his new masters. The Russians recognize the importance of Hastings; it proposes an invasion of Great Britain by the American forces - an incendiary document to which Daniels has added a devilish paragraph proposing the assassination of the British Prime Minister. Daniels pauses long enough in London to entrust a copy of Hastings to a rabidly anti-American English journalist. Colonel Robert Brede, acting on behalf of the US President, is on his way to London, where the British secret service, knowing only that the code word is Hastings, has alerted them. An unforgettable novel of pursuit and terror is underway.