On a busy Washington morning, the stately calm of the White House is shattered in a deadly terrorist attack on the executive mansion. The president is evacuated to an underground bunker, but not before nearly one hundred hostages are taken. Mitch Rapp, the CIA's top counterterrorism operative sent in to take control of the crisis, determines that the president is not as safe as Washington's power elite had thought. Indeed, Rapp has made a chilling discovery that could rock Washington to its core: someone within his own government wants his rescue attempt to fail.