Synopsis

In this fictional thriller taken from tomorrow's headlines, America burns while Washington fiddles. The U.S. is racked with global setbacks; serial recessions and food shortage riots; corruption and incompetence from one 'president' more tainted, sinister, and reckless than the last, like a series of Caligulas and Neros put into office by a system that no longer works. Amid this backdrop of growing chaos, extremists of all stripes start rocking the edges of the boat.

Something must be done. Demagogues are shrill. Talk shows glow red with hate and calls for violent action. The media are have forgotten about 'objective reporting' and have become corporate shills echoing this lie one day, that lie another day. The news ignores burning issues, and instead drums on hour after hour with shallow reportage about self-immolating young rock stars.

Moderate politicians are paralyzed as radicals increasingly rally the unthinking, the uninformed, the gullible, the zealots, the angry, the crackpots, the nobodies looking for a cause to make them feel important. History is dangerously reliving itself. The mobs of ancient Rome and revolutionary France are reborn, like a wildfire that starts from a few embers and grows into a sea of unstoppable destruction.

Finally, Article V of the U.S. Constitution is called into action. It is a ticking time bomb, waiting to explode since 1787, when the first and only Constitutional Convention was held. Shadowy military and business figures want to impose a new constitution, reflecting their own pseudo-biblical and draconian terms upon a people who have already surrendered much of their freedom for fake ideas about 'security' and 'bread and games of the circus.' Two young army officers, Victoria "Tory" Breen and David Gordon, are the only two persons, in this thoughtful but suspenseful action thriller, who can find the key to Operation Ivory Baton and prevent a national takeover.

The Generals of October is a suspenseful and thoughtful thriller based on this premise: What if we decided to modernize the United States Constitution?

Article V tells us how we may amend the Constitution. But Article V opens up far more drastic remedies, which could lead to rewriting the entire foundation document of the U.S.A.

Article V is a ticking time bomb inside the United States Constitution. One day, when the nation is rocked by serial recessions, lawlessness, civil dissension bordering on chaos-and, worst of all, the sort of fear of which President F.D. Roosevelt spoke-then it is quite possible that the scenario of this novel may become a reality. After all, the Constitution has been interpreted by some as offering states a right to secede from the Union (e.g., Article X of the Bill of Rights, effective 1791), and that perceived option led the U.S. into a dreadful Civil War in 1861.

CON2 (a Second Constitutional Convention, the first since the original and only other such convention in 1787) is a recipe for disaster. What if we were actually desperate and thoughtless enough to try and pull it off? This novel thinks it through, and the conclusions are chilling. Better to enjoy this book as just a scary story. Let it plant a seed that becomes the silver bullet that slays the monster before it really raises its head.

"The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress..." (Italics added.)

As a matter of speed and practicality, in this book, those who managed to put together the majority calling for CON2 also implemented a ready-on set of compromise amendments to be voted into being the first day, and the 3/4 majority are in place to ratify seconds later in radical-dominated state legislatures across the country. The theory was that this dangerous convention should be done and finished in a day. Nothing, however, works as planned, and this becomes a runaway express train that threatens to smash the nation.

During the CON2 process, delegates have total political and criminal immunity, like foreign diplomats, as a necessary prerequisite to the original spirit of freedom. This means a paralyzed, rump government based on a 1789 (ratified by Vermont) Constitution that suddenly hangs in question—and nobody can control what happens in the convention. In fact, as radicals among the radicals had planned, as soon as the floor opens on the first day, chaos erupts as hundreds of increasingly bizarre and partisan amendments are added. Both the existing government, and the pending new government based on an unknown fundamental law that is frozen amid fist fights and babbling in CON2, are now rudderless.

A certain set of generals, corporate leaders, politicians, and religious fanatics now strike. First, they hit the members of the Supreme Court (whose existence is tethered largely to the old Constitution, which looks like it has ceased to have meaning) as they are being evacuated from a military airfield near Washington, D.C. Next, they take over the convention center. Operation Ivory Baton, planned for over a generation, using an old Soviet computer modeling program for how democracies are made to fail, is in effect.

Now only two young Army officers, tipped off by a murdered Coast Guard computer security expert, can figure out the key to saving the nation.

This edition (ISBN 0-7433-0910-3) differs considerably from the earlier 2001 Clocktower Books trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-7433-0000-9, withdrawn) and the 2004 iBooks/Simon & Schuster mass market paperback edition (ISBN 0-7434-9338-9,withdrawn). This 2007 edition is considerably shortened in that Part I, Preludes, has been deleted. The 2007 edition reverts to an earlier shorter, tighter version. You may continue to see older editions on sale as used books, but the 2007 edition is the only authorized version for sale 'new.'