In a rolling sea off the coast of South America, a target disappears in a puff of green light. In the soviet hills of Dushanbe near the Afghanistan boarder, an other worldly array of pillars and domes rises into the night. T the two greatest nations on earth, no contest is more urgent that the race to build the first Star Wars missile defence system, and no one know that more than the two men charged with assessing the Soviets' capabilities: Colonel Mikhail Filitov of the Soviet Union, an old-line warrior distrusted by the army's new inner-circle of technocrats, and CIA analyst Jack Ryan, hero of the Red October affair.

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