Chain of command

Caspar Weinberger, who served as defense secretary under Ronald Reagan, wrote this novel with Schweizer, his co-author on The Next War (1996). The story opens in a world reshaped by the September 11 attacks. Vice President Morgan Boyd has lost his wife in Delhi, where a bomb intended for him went off instead. Boyd resents Dean Fairbank, his superior, who insists on constitutional limits that stand in the way of a full-scale war on terror, so Boyd begins to consider removing the president from the picture altogether.

Secret Service agent Mike Delaney, whose failure in Delhi drew attention, finds himself framed for a plot he did not commit. Hunting him are Delta Force soldiers and a renegade unit led by a former Army comrade of Delaney's who was forced into retirement. An unsettling Chilean black-ops operative, who kills without hesitation, also joins the chase. Delaney's best hope is Mary Campos, a onetime lover who starts out skeptical of him but ends up on his side.

Boyd's scheme is to pin the assassination on a right-wing militia, though not the crude, poorly organized kind, and then clamp down on domestic opposition, impose martial law and launch a war. Some officers still recall the rules on unlawful orders and the Posse Comitatus Act, which bars the government from using the military against its own citizens. Moving through the Appalachians while staying ahead of dangerous pursuers, Delaney leaves a trail of destruction behind him.