Journalist Rudi Flynn is recruited by the US State Department to try and
get a handle on what's happening around the world, where populism and
right-wing tendencies are seriously escalating. First off it's Europe
with riots in France and bombs in Dublin. Then it's the sinking US Rust
Belt, followed by drug-infested Mexico and serious problems for
governments in south America. There are LGBT activists campaigning in
Trinidad as wealthy tourists are harassed in Jamaica, while in Cuba an
Army General offers help in trying to halt the massive transition of
drugs up to the US and Canada.
Australia, Japan and China are
faltering as the US President fires a missile into the sea close to
North Korea. The French Interior Minister is shot in Paris, and there
are resonances from the Nazi days in Eastern Europe as Flynn hears tales
of what's driving the increasingly dictatorial leaders and their
promiscuously inclined female advisors. Terrorists explode a bomb
outside London's Victoria Station, while in the North of England
impoverished teenage girls complain about being forced into prostitution
by Pakistani migrants. There are riots in Stockholm and Holland is no
longer a liberal hub.
As Flynn flies back to the States the
airline pilot says that non-nuclear North Korean missiles have just hit
New York, where Flynn's apartment building has collapsed. There is then a
move by Russia and China to get a proper peace treaty going with the US
in Moscow. It works well and when Flynn returns to Washington his wife
Maria has come to see him. They were on the point of getting a divorce,
but she now wants to start a family, which may be feasible as Flynn has
just been offered a job in Washington with US Homeland Security.
