In a post-apocalyptic America devastated by a two-hour nuclear exchange, civilization has fragmented into isolated small towns separated by blasted ruins. Lloyd Riddell, the self-made mayor of Center City in Ohio, has spent two decades rebuilding his community from the ashes, having arrived as a frightened ten-year-old orphan before the catastrophe. Through sheer force of will, personal sacrifice, and moral conviction, he transformed panic into resilience on the night of the bombing and has since dedicated himself to peaceful reconstruction. The fragile stability he has built is threatened when a young spy named Len Colter returns from the neighboring town of Northburg with alarming news: a charismatic demagogue named David Barr has been publicly calling for the destruction of Center City. Riddell dismisses Colter from further espionage duty, particularly after learning that another spy, Ben Kingston, has been found dead on a nearby farm with a warning note pinned to his corpse. Riddell personally takes on the dangerous mission of infiltrating Northburg, determined to prevent another war through means other than armed conflict. Approaching Northburg on foot, Riddell finds the town enclosed behind a ten-foot brick wall, patrolled by uniformed soldiers, presenting the appearance of a medieval fortress. He subdues an outer guard, assumes the man's identity as Corporal Edmund Calder of the Army of Northburg, and slips through the city gates. Inside, despite the surface appearance of normality, the population carries an unmistakable look of fear rather than the hope Riddell has cultivated among his own citizens. Entering a bar to gather intelligence, Riddell observes two farmers quietly expressing their reluctance to go to war, though intimidated into near silence by the presence of soldiers. He intercepts the pair under the pretense of arresting them for seditious speech, then reveals his true identity and purpose. The farmers confirm that Barr has been telling the population that Center City itself poses an imminent threat, manufacturing fear to justify conquest and maintain his grip on power. This revelation crystallizes Riddell's understanding that Barr's authority rests on a manufactured psychological foundation rather than genuine popular support. An urgent loudspeaker announcement orders all off-duty soldiers to assemble outside military headquarters for a combat briefing, indicating that Plan 102 is being accelerated. Riddell deduces that the stripped and abandoned guard has been discovered, alerting Northburg's forces that another Center City infiltrator is loose in the city, and that this has prompted Barr to move his invasion plans forward. Time becomes critical. Filtering into the assembling crowd of soldiers, Riddell listens to conversations confirming widespread private doubt and reluctance about the planned attack. Many soldiers are not true believers in Barr's cause but have been kept in line through fear and propaganda. Barr himself appears on a third-floor balcony to address the troops, and Riddell seizes the moment to force his way past building guards using the pretext of carrying urgent intelligence from Center City. Fighting his way up through the building, overpowering guards on each landing, Riddell reaches Barr's office and locks himself inside with the warlord. While Barr continues his inflammatory speech from the balcony to the assembled soldiers below, Riddell confronts him. Barr attempts to draw a weapon, which Riddell knocks away, and the two men struggle as the crowd below begins to fracture, voices rising both in support of violence against Barr and in open rejection of the war itself. Barr produces a knife and attacks. Riddell disarms him and forces him toward the balcony. Despite his deep personal vow to abandon killing in favor of peaceful rebuilding, Riddell concludes in the moment that Barr's death constitutes not murder but a necessary execution in the service of peace, a painful paradox he accepts with clarity. He throws Barr from the balcony to his death, ending the threat to Center City and leaving Northburg's population, already fractured in its loyalties, to confront a future without the demagogue who had driven them toward war.
By Robert Silverberg · First published 1994 · Genre: Science Fiction, Political Fiction, Dystopian