Washington DC: President Wilson Riordan, former career Air Force officer, businessman, and senator, discovers hints of an international plot that could upend the current fragile balance of government alliances throughout the world.

Cheyenne Mountain: Major General Jock McReynolds, commanding general of the Strategic Air Command and former commanding officer of Colonel Wilson Riordan, notices hints in the behavior of foreign military units, air traffic patterns, and naval sorties that are red flags to his highly developed military gut instinct.

Springfield, Missouri: Jared Faraday, southwest Missouri multi-millionaire businessman with a political-trends hobby bordering on obsession, is very concerned about what he is seeing on the news and the Internet, so much so that he warns his family and friends.

They are all correct.

The Last Sunrise is a possible future. The elements are already in place.