According to the leaked war plan, the Soviet leadership considers acceptable the loss of 20 to 30 million of their own civilian population due to an anticipated retaliatory strike by NATO.

Randy Bragg, a failed political candidate and an attorney who occasionally practices law, lives an otherwise aimless life in the small Central Florida town of Fort Repose.

The explosion is mistaken for a large-scale U.S. air assault on the military facility and, by the following day, the Soviet Union retaliates with its planned full-scale nuclear strike against the United States and its allies.

[4] Following what is simply referred to as "The Day," Fort Repose descends into chaos: tourists are trapped in their hotels, communication lines fail, the CONELRAD radio system barely operates, convicts escape from prisons, and a run on the banks makes currency worthless.

In the weeks and months after the attack, sporadic news gathered through an old but still-functioning vacuum tube radio receiver show that many major cities of the U.S. are in ruins and vast regions of the Continental United States are labeled by the government as off-limits "contaminated zones."

Because of the numerous U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy installations from one end of the state to the other that were struck during the Soviet attack, Florida is among the contaminated areas, leaving the stranded survivors of Fort Repose without hope of immediate assistance.

[4] Other international broadcasts, heard over the shortwave radio of Randy's neighbor, retired Navy Rear Admiral Sam Hazzard,[3] reveal that Western Europe was badly hit by Soviet missiles as well, mentioning a dire situation in southern France.

Randy also learns that his brother, Mark, most likely died when Omaha and Offutt Air Force Base were destroyed by multiple Soviet nuclear missile strikes.

As well, the country lost most of its military, its infrastructure, and most of its natural resources -- ironically, the U.S. government is planning to use the large stockpiles of military-grade uranium and plutonium left from the war to power the surviving towns and cities with nuclear reactors.