From coast to coast, raves greeted James W. Huston's first electrifying thriller of Washington intrigue, Congressional confrontation, and fast-paced, flat-out war at sea. Now he's back with a new novel featuring the same winning style and many of the same characters, who face off once again in a deadly, winner-take-all encounter. In a plot torn from tomorrow's headlines, the peacenik president court-martials the admiral who, in defiance of a presidential order, led Congress's attack on the same group of terrorists who set off the plot of Huston's last explosive novel, Balance of Power. The angry Speaker of the House retaliates by initiating impeachment proceedings. Jim Dillon, the Speaker's top aide, finds himself defending the admiral in the court-martial and is named number-two prosecutor for the upcoming impeachment trial. Meanwhile, the terrorists are back in invading a U.S.-owned gold mine on an Indonesian island, murdering the American boss, and holding his wife hostage. The price for her release of the terrorists captured in the assault.