Foreign Service veteran Richard Michaelson knows that it is often better to talk to secretaries than big wigs in the political jungles of Washington, DC. But when one such ambitious young secretary turns up dead in a locked hotel room, Michaelson suddenly realizes just how much she knew...and that the killer might now be after him. Now everyone is clamoring to get their hands on the mysterious document in the dead woman's possession. Soon investigators, staffers and liaisons are coming out of the woodwork to keep things quiet. But for Michaelson, solving this mystery could be a matter of life and death.