Friendship City: Hanging by a Thread by Carl Mitchell

It is 2058. NYPD detective Nick Garvey and Lenora Allison, President of the battered and reeling United States, are battling the many remaining remnants of the murderous World Council. They must confront the forced introduction of a man-made killer plague and the destruction of the newly created Friendship City. President Allison succeeded in her fight to destroy the first plague only to learn a second more deadly one was imminent. Ishmael, the mysterious new leader of the World Council, has decided to destroy Friendship City, an autonomous joining of Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros, Mexico, where the citizens are developing their own protective Bill of Rights. President Allison asks Nick to fly from Houston, where his daughter is recovering from a coma, to the White House to help in the fight. Can the second plague be destroyed? Why is Friendship City spiraling into chaos? Can Ishmael be destroyed? Nick wrestles to find Ishmael, but Ishmael finds him first. Capturing Nick, President Allison, Nick’s family, and all others in his way, he forces them to sit in a circle, surrounded by rifles. Ishmael starts his countdown.