When he was a young CIA analyst, President Jack Ryan, Sr., was sent to investigate the death of an operative who was looking into suspicious Swiss banking activities. Ryan uncovered financial deceit and the existence of a KGB assassin code-named Zenith, but never found the killer. Now, a new strongman has emerged in Russia—the enigmatic President Valeri Volodin. He has set in motion a plot to return Russia to its former glory. When an old firend of the Ryans is poisoned, the trail leads to Russia. And Jack Ryan, Jr., and the covert warriors of the Campus must delve into an international conflict thirty years in the making, and finish what his father started.