26 years ago, the U.S. Presidential limousine plunged off a snowbound bridge in Maryland. President Lorena Kirkland announced her infant daughter had died in the crash, washed away in the snowmelt rivers. 

But it was all a lie. 

Welcome to Operation Pandora.

The story is told primarily from two perspectives. Anderson is a no-nonsense Secret Service agent who is perhaps easier to define by what she has never done: been on holiday, replied “I’m fine” when asked if she was okay, or held hands in public. General Rourke is a seen-it-all-before CIA black ops officer, seconded to the White House to work for the President, Lorena Kirkland, who is desperate to stop the world from sliding into World War 3. Rourke is the architect of Operation Pandora and believes he is always three steps ahead of everyone else. And he is - until, suddenly, one day, he just isn’t. I said two, but I can’t leave out Esme: an investigative journalist whom Anderson pulls out of an assassin’s crosshairs in Costa Rica. Why someone wants Esme dead is unclear at first, but over the next seven days, she and Anderson fight to stay alive, while in Washington, Rourke struggles to keep his primaries safe.