Set in the Tom Clancy universe, President Jack Ryan and The Campus must prevent a secret cabal heightening the tensions between the United States and China from causing a violent coup in the Chinese government.

[2] Zhao Chengzhi was appointed as President of China after the death of his predecessor Wei Zhen Lin years prior (depicted in Threat Vector).

However, his moderate stance on national and international affairs angers hardliners in the Chinese government, particularly Foreign Minister Li Zhengsheng, who perceives him to be a weakling.

Putting his plot into motion, Li recruits General Xu Jinlong, the head of the Central Security Bureau, to sabotage a Chinese commercial ship, which later explodes near American waters; the nearby United States Coast Guard on the northern West Coast manages to rescue most of its crew after it sank, but ten men are either dead or missing.

In addition, Li enlists agent provocateur Vincent Chen, codenamed Coronet, to orchestrate a series of attacks led by terrorist groups: on an oil drilling operation in Chad (American soldiers, who were on a military exercise nearby, assist and are killed by Boko Haram) and a private sailboat near Indonesia (by allowing its occupants to call for help, Jemaah Islamiyah pirates aim to lure a nearby American patrol ship so that they can in turn attack it).

Meanwhile, Taiwanese journalist Eddie Feng, who has first-hand access to the Chinese government, discovers Coronet's responsibility behind a subway bombing in China that he was investigating and his connection to a sex trafficking ring in Texas.

Li secretly uses the conference as an opportunity to stage through Chen and his henchmen an assassination attempt on himself, which he believes will make him more popular back in China.

The Campus witness the incident and later meet up with Monzaki Yukiko, a Japanese intelligence officer who was also there to surveil Chen in connection with an espionage case in her country.

Clark eventually finds out that Chen's sister, Lily, is a business partner with Emilio Zambrano, a boss of the sex trafficking gang, and that they are holding Magdalena.

After its crew is rescued by a nearby Taiwanese patrol vessel, the surveillance ship is scuttled, overriding an attempt by a Chinese destroyer in the vicinity to seize it despite Zhao's assurances.

Jack Jr. recognizes the Chinese leader's bodyguards as the same men on Li's protection detail in Argentina (they were last-minute replacements for Zhao's agents who were suspiciously killed back in Beijing).

On February 20, 2017, The Real Book Spy announced that principal authors in the Tom Clancy universe, Mark Greaney and Grant Blackwood are leaving the franchise.