Congressional chief of staff Dave O'Brien is salivating at the prospects for advancement in the wake of a tragic plane crash that has opened the way for his boss, Congressman Noah Sebring, to take over the powerful chair of the House Appropriations Committee. But Dave has a problem: he's received a threatening e-mail accompanied by a photo of a young intern, bound and gagged. The missing girl's father, unhappy with Dave's explanations about his daughter's whereabouts, hires a reporter, Nick DaPrato, to go to Washington and "shake things up." DaPrato has his own credibility issues, since his newspaper fired him for making up sources on an expose of local corruption. As the battle for the chairmanship heats up, Dave tries to protect his job, while Nick struggles to keep the search for the intern on the front burner in this epic tale of duplicity and deceit in the nation's capital."