The inside ring

the long version

General Andy Banks, the Secretary of Homeland Security, is nursing a guilty conscience. Only days before an assassin's bullet winged the president and took the life of the president's longtime best friend, Banks had received a note with a dire warning: "Eagle One is in danger. Cancel Chattooga River. The inside ring has been compromised. This is not a joke." The message-on Secret Service stationery-was signed, "An agent in the wrong place." Banks immediately passed the note on to Secret Service Director Patrick Donnelly, who proceeded to ignore it. Even after the supposed assassin is found dead, Banks is determined to dig a little deeper. He turns to Speaker of the House John Fitzgerald Mahoney. Mahoney has the perfect under-the-radar, go-to guy: Joe DeMarco, an honest lawyer with a sordid family past who owes his career to the Speaker. After one meeting with Banks, DeMarco realizes he's in way over his head. But Mahoney finds the prospect of taking down Donnelly irresistible, and sets DeMarco on a trail that twists through the Secret Service, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security, and snakes all the way back to one of the more enduring mysteries of the 20th century.