Author Series | David Ignatius | Phantom Orbit

Phantom Orbit follows Ivan Volkov, a Russian student in Beijing, who discovers an unsolved puzzle in the writings of the seventeenth-century astronomer Johannes Kepler. He takes the puzzle to a senior scientist in the Chinese space program and declares his intention to solve it. Volkov returns to Moscow and continues his secret work. The years pass, and they are not kind to Volkov. After the loss of his son, a prosecutor who’d been too tough on corruption, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Volkov makes the fraught decision to contact the CIA. He writes: Satellites are your enemies, especially your own. . . . Hidden codes can make time stop and turn north into south. . . . If you are smart, you will find me. The puzzle holds untold consequences for space warfare and Volkov may be able to stop the Doomsday clock.
David Ignatius is a prize-winning columnist for the Washington Post and has been covering the Middle East and the CIA for four decades. He has written several New York Times bestsellers. He lives in Washington, DC.