The Tashkent Crisis is a Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

 era novel by William Craig

William Craig (author)

William Craig was an American author and historian.Born in Concord, Massachusetts, USA, he was educated at Columbia University. His first book, The Fall of Japan, was a documentary account of the last weeks of the Second World War in the Pacific. His first novel, The Tashkent Crisis, a thriller...

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Plot

The novel is based on events that may have followed the receipt of the following transmission from Moscow by the incumbent President of the United States:

MOSCOW EXOR MSG6

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:

WE HEREBY DEMAND THE UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER OF YOUR COUNTRY 72 HOURS FROM THIS TRANSMISSION...

Evidence is offered that a new weapon is in Soviet hands that renders the US vulnerable to an attack consistent with this warning.

Thereafter it is the task of US agents to avoid the need for the US Government to surrender within the given timeframe. Their first hint as to what action to take is that a coup d'etat

Coup d'état

A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...

 has taken place within the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 and a new leader is in charge.

The action taken is to destroy the beam weapon in use by a pocket nuke consisting of an Einsteinium

Einsteinium

Einsteinium is a synthetic element with the symbol Es and atomic number 99. It is the seventh transuranic element, and an actinide.Einsteinium was discovered in the debris of the first hydrogen bomb explosion in 1952, and named after Albert Einstein...

warhead contained within the stock of a modified pistol.