Two men possess vital information on Russia’s Star Wars missile defense system.

One of them is Cardinal – America’s highest agent in the Kremlin — and he’s about to be terminated by the KGB.

The other one is the American who can save Cardinal and lead the world to the brink of peace . . . or war.

Here is author Tom Clancy’s heart-stopping masterpiece — a riveting novel about one of the most intriguing issues of our time.

Debt of Honor ends as Jack Ryan is confirmed vice president minutes before a mammoth act of terrorism kills the President, most of his cabinet, all but a few members of Congress, the entire Supreme Court and all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Suddenly Ryan is President, which is where Executive Orders begins.

Ryan’s responsibilities crush in on him. Where should he begin? He must calm a nation, pacify world leaders, arrange a massive funeral — while he rebuilds a government as quickly as possible. But that’s not all. Enemies abroad and at home see opportunities, and they’ll soon present President Ryan with an unimaginable crisis. How will he tackle his greatest challenge ever?

When Muslim fundamentalists blow up a key Soviet oil complex, making an already critical oil shortage calamitous, the Russians figure they are going to have to take things into their own hands. They plan to seize the Persian Gulf, and more ambitiously, to neutralize NATO. Thus begins Red Storm, an audacious gamble that uses diplomatic maneuver to cloak a crash military build-up. When Soviet tanks begin to roll, the West is caught off guard. What looks like a thrust turns into an all-out shooting war, possibly the climactic battle for control of the globe.

Newly elected, Jack Ryan has found that being President is not easy: domestic pitfalls await him at every turn; there’s a revolution in Liberia; the Asian economy is going down the tubes; and now, in Moscow, someone may have tried to assassinate the chairman of the SVR – the former KGB – with a rocket-propelled grenade. Were the potential assassins political enemies, the Russian Mafia, or disaffected former KGB? Or is something far more dangerous at work here? While Ryan dispatches his most trusted eyes and ears, including black ops specialist John Clark, to find out the truth of the matter, forces in China are moving ahead with a plan of truly audacious proportions. If they succeed, the world will never look the same again.