President Lincoln Hawk calls a Summit Meeting for Independence Day. His apparent reason is concern about social unrest. But there are those who wonder whether Hawk, ex-head of the CIA, is secretly more interested in meeting Premier Andropov, ex-head of the KGB . . .

Meanwhile in North Korea, English reporter Samantha Webster stumbles across the wreck of Hawk's Sabre-jet, and a corpse bearing all Hawk's identification papers.

Back in London, Samantha is arrested as soon as she tries to file her story and falls into the hands of Intelligence officer Derek Mills. He is custodian of a Cold War file detailing Stalin's programme to use every Soviet advance in surgery, psychology and spycraft to clone and replace a leading American. No one has ever discovered who was duplicated - until now . . .

Samantha and Mills fly to Washington and are instantly hurled into a deadly race against time. They have until Independence Day to reveal who the President really is. Against an enemy who will stop at nothing to prevent them.