President Burton K. Wheeler (who defeated Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940) surrenders the United States to the Axis after a devastating bombardment of missiles from occupied Canada.

Thirty years later in 1976, Hideki Tojo and Adolf Hitler are preparing to board trains that will carry them to their historic meeting marking the 30th anniversary of their victory over the United States.

The story commences with the assassination of the Japanese general who conquered the area by using methods like those of Tomoyuki Yamashita in Malaya and Masaharu Homma in the Philippines.

What occurred in the Japanese sector is never completely addressed but it is hinted that the ethnic cleansing took place, though in a less industrialized manner, like the Rape of Nanjing instead of death camps.

That is especially the case for the official component, a stay-behind military and scientific group that was charged by President Wheeler, just before the surrender in 1946, with a secret project that could, if successful, reverse the country's fortunes.

That is at odds with the rest of the narrative and is almost as if the author is acting as a Greek chorus of sorts and is puzzling, as it implies associated events outside the storyline but related to it.