Ghost Country, by Patrick Lee

I picked this up because the cover led me to believe this was an alternate history novel. It was in a way, but really was more of a time travel adventure pitting two factions against each other, one trying to create a particular future and one opposed. The President of the United States is of course one of the villains, and has the power to order up secret hit squads that will attack armored motorcades in the streets of Washington D.C. without any repercussion. The brains behind the operation (because of course the President will take orders from a former Peace Corps worker) doesn’t want the heroes killed because he abhors violence, but of course wipes out the population of the earth according to plan. The evil minions are equally inconsistent, noticing a few flakes of paint on the ground in once scene and then missing the fact they were walking for miles over gasoline-soaked rubber chips. I’ll admit the MacGuffin that allowed travel into the future was clever, but not much else was. Disappointing.

First Sentence:

Fifty seconds before the first shots hit the motorcade, Paige Campbell was thinking about the fall of Rome.