Balance of Power » (Reprint)

A graduate of TOPGUN, James W. Huston flew F-14s off the USS Nimitz with the Jolly Rogers. He served as a naval flight officer and worked in Naval Intelligence before becoming a lawyer and the acclaimed author of The Shadows of Power, Balance of Power, The Price of Power, Flash Point, and Fallout. He lives in San Diego, California.

One nation indivisible...until now.

Off the coast of Indonesia, an American cargo ship has been seized by terrorists, its captain kidnapped and its crew mercilessly slaughtered. In Washington, a peace-loving President's refusal to punish the transgressors has enraged the sitting Congress, led by a determined Speaker of the House.

An ambitious young congressional assistant, Jim Dillon has discovered a time bomb hidden away in America's Constitution- a provision that could be used to wrest power from the Chief Executive; a long-forgotten clause that could incite a devastating constitutional crisis...and plunge the country into chaos.

Now, as a battle group steams toward a fateful confrontation in the Java Sea-commissioned by Congress and opposed by the President- Dillon finds himself in the center of a firestorm that rages from the highest court in the land to the killing fields half a world away. And, suddenly, there is much more at stake than the life of a single surviving hostage and a superpower's military credibility—as a great nation prepares for war...against itself.

Washington Book World

If you like Tom Clancy, you'll love Balance of Power.