The Path of Duty and Honor
by William Gensburger
& JC Ryan
Two hundred and fifty years after the birth of a nation, its first president walks among the living again!
Historian Nathan Scott thinks Presidents’ Day at Mount Vernon will be just another book signing for his biography entitled: By George.
Until he meets a man he believes to be an actor portraying George Washington so convincingly that it is easy to accept him as the first president.
Thrust into the center of a political firestorm, author Nathan Scott and investigative journalist Sarah James become reluctant handlers to the one person who may be able to remind a fractured republic what it was meant to be.
As Washington awakens in a world of twenty‑four‑hour news cycles, weaponized conspiracy theories, and razor‑thin elections, every word he speaks becomes ammunition.
The current president, Maria Cander, believes she is a descendant of one of the founding fathers, an allegation Nathan has made in his controversial book. She is also the architect of a radical bill before Congress, the American Restoration Act (ARA), that will end corruption and restore the vision of the founding fathers.
Meanwhile, a few ruthless senators see in this Washington, the ultimate threat—and launch a covert campaign to control, discredit, or destroy the living symbol of the Founders’ vision.
With the glare of the nation’s 250th anniversary approaching, Nathan and Sarah must fight to keep Washington safe.
The battle for America’s future comes down to a final confrontation between a man who helped build the republic and a man determined to destroy it.
Blending historically accurate information with an intimate character drama and the towering presence of George Washington himself, The Path of Duty and Honor is a gripping present-day political thriller about life, duty, second chances, national memory, and whether a divided nation can still recognize the truth when it’s standing right in front of it.
You'll want to read this history-based thriller.
AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER April 13, 2026: Release date May 1, 2026
The link for pre-order will be here when it is active.
About the Authors:
William Gensburger is the bestselling author of ‘Texas Dead: A Season of Death,’ ‘Texas Dead: A Season of Despair,’ ‘Distant Rumors: 10 Short Stories,’ ‘Verisium: Conversations with AI on the Meaning of Life and Death,’ and ‘The Era of Synthetic Reality, and other stories.’ He is also a Certified Hypnotherapist Coach (IAPCP) and lives outside Boise, Idaho.
JC Ryan's books have received high acclaim from readers who have bought more than 800,000 of his books and read more than 57 million pages. He is the bestselling author of over 35 books. Ryan has been married to his college sweetheart since 1978; they have two married daughters and a grandchild.
To reach the authors' websites, click on their names
EXCERPT:
©2026 William Gensburger & JC Ryan
July 1, 2026
America, when it decided to celebrate, did not do so in a big way.
Overnight, the park had been turned into a hybrid of county fair and revival meeting. Red, white, and blue bunting hung from every tree and booth; vendors sold hot dogs, funnel cakes dusted with powdered sugar, and T-shirts, caps, and keychains proclaiming "Restore Us" in bold letters, from booths that stretched the length of the main path.
Children ran between the legs of adults too busy taking photographs of the stage to notice. A group of veterans in matching caps had claimed a prime spot near the front and were holding small American flags with the quiet authority of men who had earned the right to stand wherever they pleased, and they were right to think so.
Near the main path, a father in a faded volunteer cap from Mount Vernon leaned in to speak to his pre-teenage son, Jake. The boy, in low-slung sweatpants, a wrinkled t-shirt, and hair deliberately messy, seemed annoyed by the crowd. "This is about fixing what's broken. The founders left us something worth saving."
A few yards away, Nathan Scott stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Sarah James and his son, Tommy, the three of them pressed close to the rope line for a better view. Tommy, atypical of his fifteen years wearing a clean, open-collared shirt and ironed slacks, appeared the most eager.
Nathan glanced around, eyes searching for their missing friend who had said he would meet them there.
The crowd was large, loud, and almost entirely happy. At least for one morning, things would work out.
The assassin had chosen his perch after three weeks of reconnaissance, twelve visits to the park wearing various disguises, at various times of the day, because those in his line of work have to be thorough, while amateurs get caught. He had studied the sight lines, the prevailing winds, the likely positions of security personnel, taking every nuance into account along with the trajectory of the morning sun, because a glint off a scope at the wrong moment was the sort of life-ending mistake for him.
The pine tree at the outer edge of the park was perfect, forty feet up, dense with late-summer foliage, and all but invisible from the ground and from the air. He had used camouflaged tarps both above and below him so he would remain invisible from the ground as well as the helicopters that would be circling above. He’d hauled the rifle up in pieces over several days, each component sealed in a camouflaged bag and cinched tight against the trunk where it wouldn’t catch light or silhouette. Nothing moved unless he intended it to. Nothing reflected. By the time the last section was in place, the weapon felt less assembled than inevitable.
It was a suppressed 6.5 Creedmoor with an adjustable gas block—configured, not improvised. He’d tuned it himself, cutting excess gas until the action cycled with a restrained, mechanical certainty. At two hundred yards, he accounted for roughly six inches of drop off a hundred-yard zero. Not a guess. A number he’d already solved for, committed, and removed from further consideration.
He’d brought only what sustained function: food dense enough to fill, clothing layers against the cold, and a climber’s cable anchored deep to keep him from falling in his sleep. Even here, gravity was an adversary that didn’t negotiate. Rest came in intervals, controlled and deliberate. Everything else—waste, movement, presence—was handled with the same blunt calculus. He would leave no trace. No evidence. No loose ends.
He was, in every measurable way, a professional.
The Secret Service, to their credit, had done everything right. The park had been selected because it was a safe place. It offered no rooftops, parking garages, or elevated structures from which a sniper might operate. They'd swept the grounds the day before, cleared the surrounding area, and positioned agents at overlapping distances that left no gap in coverage. Metal detectors would process the incoming crowd as bags were searched. Pat-downs were conducted on anyone, especially those whose looks they didn't approve of, and several whose looks they did.
A bulletproof transparent screen had been erected behind the podium where the president would speak, with two more panels flanking the teleprompters on either side. It was intended to be a fortress of protective glass and federal manpower. So long as POTUS was wedged between the layers.
The president, however, had insisted on a meet-and-greet in front of it. At least briefly, she had said, because the American people needed to see her humanity. Because the American Restoration Act required their support, they needed to be right next to her. Because shaking hands and kissing babies was apparently non-negotiable, despite the assassination attempt of the year before, which many staff had thought would have recalibrated her risk assessment somewhat.
Not this president. She was fierce at heart, yet still approachable. A dangerous combination.
The Secret Service had registered its objections through the appropriate channels. President Cander had listened carefully, weighed the concerns, and overruled them anyway. This, everyone agreed privately, was very on-brand for her.
Even the twenty other trees in the surrounding area had been examined, thoroughly checked with binoculars from the ground and from helicopters above. To be fair, it was a solid check, by the book, but in hindsight, the kind of thing that would, in the event of failure, get written up in security manuals years later, under headings like 'Vulnerabilities We Did Not Anticipate'.
From his position forty feet up, wrapped in a camouflage tarp that made him effectively invisible to the helicopters circling overhead and the agents diligently scanning from below, the assassin watched the motorcade arrive with the calm detachment of a man who had rehearsed every possible scenario until nothing surprised him anymore. He was as ready as he could be. He had been paid generously on the assumption that the probability of capture after the shot was high. Even if he managed to escape, and he was prepared for that outcome with new passports under an assumed name for a life in an obscure South American country, he could never return. How that played out remained to be seen.
The president emerged flanked by agents, the first gentleman at her side, moving toward the designated greeting area with the easy confidence of a woman who regarded her own security briefings as optional reading.
Wearing what the media had dubbed her preferred presidential pantsuit collection, she had settled on cobalt blue, with a tailored blazer featuring the Presidential Seal emblazoned across the chest pocket. She smoothed it down with her hands, brushing back a strand of hair that had blown across her face before facing the crowd.
The assassin settled the Creedmoor against his shoulder and found her in his glass. He checked his sight line. Clear and clean. The party balloons showed it was nearly a still wind. He couldn't have hoped for better conditions.
He had no doubts about the rifle. He'd verified its accuracy to the edge of obsession, running subsonic loads through it until the margin of error was, for practical purposes, zero. One bullet — engineered to fragment on impact, to do its work quietly and completely. The suppressor would swallow most of the sound. By the time anyone understood what had happened, he'd be on the ground. Then a two-second drop on the cable, blend into the crowd, and walk away.
He tracked her through the scope as she worked the line—shaking hands, leaning in for selfies, performing the ritual of pretending that every stranger mattered. Balloons drifted lazily.
He drew a long breath. Let half of it out. His finger found the trigger. As she turned slightly, the angle opened up exactly as he had calculated it would. It was the infinite moment before action, as the future was about to be locked, one way or the other. He was ready to squeeze the trigger. Three. Two. One…
Something appeared that he could not yet see, passing outside the edge of the scope and rapidly moving toward the president just as he squeezed back on the trigger.
A horse and rider in full gallop, blue Continental Army jacket flapping, hair tied back, eyes locked forward. Secret Service agents now shouting, weapons rising, but the moment had already slipped.
And at the moment he fired, there was a blur; dark, fast, massive, filling the glass for a fraction of a second.
The rider launched from the saddle, airborne toward the president's head.
The round crossed the distance in a blink and fragmented on impact exactly as designed, tearing through muscle and tissue. Still, momentum carried the rider forward, and he came down hard, driving the president to the ground with his own body as Secret Service agents closed in from every direction.
From his perch, the assassin didn't wait to assess the result. He had trained for this. Phase one was the kill shot. Phase two was escape. It was now or never. He was already moving, hands finding the cable, feet pushing off from the branch, feet hitting the ground within two seconds. Then he was in the crowd, and the crowd swallowed him whole.
Behind him, a single voice cut above the noise with the particular shrillness of someone who had just witnessed history:
"My God, the president's been shot!"
