Washington - five days before the Presidential Inauguration.
The President Elect is charming, charismatic, and has a beautiful wife. He won the election by the narrowest of margins, but now he promises a new dawn for th American people. His name is Jack Meade.
Jacksonville, Florida. The man in the hospital bed has been cast ashore, his body and face ravaged by sea water, his survival a miracle according to the doctors. No one knows his identity and no one has posted him missing. He is irrational, delusional. He says his name is Jack Meade. No one believes him.
In Washington, the President Elect has the might of the Secret Service and the armed forces to protect him. No one is allowed to get too close to him. All the patient has is the certain knowledge that he is Jack Meade, that he has been replaced by an exact double. The man who will shortly enter the White House represents a terrible danger to the free world. He must reach Washington and unmask him. But can he get to the imposter in time?