"In an alternate 2009, the United States has been a second-rate power for a quarter of a century, ever since Argentina's victory in the Falkland's War thanks to their development of "psychopigments." Created as weapons, these colorful chemicals can produce almost any human emotion upon contact, and they have been embraced in the US as both pharmaceutical cure-alls and popular recreational drugs. Black market traders illegally sell everything from...

"The president of the United States . . . is missing. With these words, New York Times journalist J. B. Collins, reporting from the scene of a devastating attack by ISIS terrorists in Amman, Jordan, puts the entire world on high alert. The leaders of Israel and Palestine are critically injured, Jordan's king is fighting for his life, and the U.S. president is missing and presumed captured. As the U.S. government faces a constitutional crisis and Jordan...

A Cuban doctor arrives in New York to release a deadly African virus in a demonstration of what Cuba will do if the U.S. trade embargo is not lifted. A CIA-sponsored abduction of the man is a fiasco and the chase is on.