On an early November morning, a killer strikes, his victim a prominent member of Congress. Before investigators identify the perpetrator, a second congressman dies. Both men were members of a sensitive oversight committee, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. When it becomes evident that a serial killer is targeting that select group, the president approves the acting FBI director's recommendation that they appoint a task force to manage the investigation. The FBI director selects an old friend, Inspector Conor Gifford, the Chief of the Office of Special Investigations of the Virginia State Police, to command the task force, hoping that an outsider will divert the growing media outrage away from her besieged agency. Before the pursuers come to grips with the case, a third victim, a committee staffer dies. Gifford learns that the victims were responsible for creating the situation that resulted in their deaths. His case grows more complicated when he discovers that a second killer is operating within the chaos created by the first.