Failure to Fire takes place in 2015 - 2016 when al Qaeda smuggles teams of terrorists into the United States by crossing the southern border and by coming ashore in the Northeast. Their goal, shut down the U.S. air transportation system using man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS).

The president of the U.S. does not believe, now that his administration has eliminated Osama bin Laden, that al Qaeda is capable of such an attack despite prima facie evidence that MANPADS have been found in the U.S. Derek Almer's contacts at the CIA arranged for him to create a small think tank to operate under the radar and identify who is bringing the missiles into the country and develop a plan to prevent their use.

Almer must deal with an administration more interested in maintaining its narrative that "Osama is dead, the war on terror is over." The attorney general decides to go after Derek and his organization rather than hunt the terrorists already in the U.S.

Failure to Fire is the second book in the Derek Almer Counterterrorism series. The first was called Flight of the Pawnee. Each novel in the series has a plot based on a threat to the U.S. homeland that the U.S. government does not want to discuss publicly. A third novel called Insidious Dragon will be released in the fall of 2023.