When the stock markets crash and the U.S. economy falls into a crippling recession, everything changes for newly elected president Kenneth Phoenix. With reductions in education and transportation, an incapacitated National Guard, and the loss of public safety budgets, entire communities of armed citizens band together for survival and mutual protection. Against this dismal backdrop, a group calling themselves the Knights of the True Republic ambush a SWAT team and steal radioactive materials . . . and thebattle against the government is taken to a deadlier level.

In this time of crisis, the Nevada Wing of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP)—led by retired Air Force Lieutenant-General Patrick McLanahan, his son, Bradley, and other volunteers—rises to the task of protecting their fellow countrymen. But when the homegrown terrorists detonate a dirty bomb in Reno and Bradley is caught in a perilous double-cross, Patrick McLanahan will have to fight to discover where his friends' true loyalties lie.