"O, what a tangled web we weave." "Shots fired! Shots fired!" Those words, shouted by Secret Service agent Claire Bradley during a campaign speech by President Richard McClure, throw into motion a series of events that will take Bradley half way across the world as she follows a trail as thin, as intricate, and as dangerous as a spider's web to find out who is behind the failed attempt to change the outcome of the upcoming presidential election. Bradley's valiant actions during the shooting are caught on tape and she is catapulted into celebrity status. Eager to gain reelection votes any way that he can, the President presses the young and attractive hero into service as a senior investigator and spokesperson for the executive task force he has created to probe the shooting. But Bradley's strong will, intelligence, and fierce commitment that 'the truth must never be compromised' meet their match in the treachery of Washington bureaucrats who have their own agendas for the task force. Her problems don't reside only in Washington, though. They include Dave Price, a local cop who seemed to be in all the right places at all the right times during the shooting; Frances Dunham, a maintenance worker in the building from which the shot was fired, who has mysteriously disappeared; a terrorist that the Israelis call The Consultant; an international arms dealer named Henri Marchaund; and a mysterious ex-CIA operative named Leland. Enduring political manipulation, abuse by a sadistic Israeli commando, and even death threats, Bradley is eventually able to separate solid leads from dead ends, misinformation and disinformation to get to the truth ... a truth that many around her don't want to hear ... a truth that even she is reluctant to believe.