Severe droughts in North Africa and the Middle East have countries warring over water supplies, throwing the world oil market into chaos. Though U.S. gas prices have spiked to $10 a gallon at the pump, Capitol Hill in Washington is at loggerheads over energy and environment legislation. A group of state governors campaigning for increased use of ethanol fuel appear victims of sabotage when a riverboat explodes on the Mississippi. Earlier on, JACK FITZGERALD is folded into the intrigue when one of those guvs, Iowa's KATHY BRANDON (his former college sweetheart), recruits him as her media advisor. Assisted by a couple feisty interns from their alma mater, Jack and Kathy cobble together a century-plus tableau of energy politics and skullduggery that reveals how the world got itself into this mess. Is it their clear eye to the past and the solution they propose why those governors get blown to smithereens? Article V is an adventure with twists of history that'll get you wondering what might've been, and then asking what can be done now?