In the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, an assassin's bullet strikes James Styles just two weeks before the Democratic Party names his spouse Vice President Harriet Styles its candidate for the Presidency. The task of apprehending the shooter falls to Richard Thatcher, the Director of the FBI, and Thatcher dispatches his protege Barbara Collins to Paris to lead the investigation. Barbara's quest takes her to the edge of the Arabian Peninsula then back to Paris where she uncovers evidence that suggests a domestic American plot. Candidate Harriet Styles mounts a bitter campaign that condemns the FBI for its failure to apprehend the terrorist assassin. Thatcher, determined to protect his embattled agency, mounts a parallel investigation. A sympathetic American public elects the grieving widow to the highest office in the land. Before the inauguration, Thatcher identifies the shooter and in doing so shakes the very foundations of the American political system.