FBI Special Agent Jackson Crowne is flying his Cessna over the Appalachians with a very important passenger – Dr. Timothy MacLean, renowned psychiatrist, their destination Washington, D.C. Upon their arrival, the FBI will protect the doctor – and find out just who wants him dead.
But Agent Crowne doesn’t make it.
In Washington, D.C., FBI special agents Savich and Sherlock are eating breakfast with their son Sean when Savich’s boss, Jimmy Maitland, calls with the news that Jack radioed in a mayday in the mountains near Parlow, Kentucky. He helicopters Savich and Sherlock there to see what’s happened.
Jack Crowne is not only a very good pilot, he’s also lucky. He manages to bring his plane down in a narrow sliver of a valley and haul the unconscious Dr. MacLean from the burning wreckage before it explodes. Their crash is witnessed by Rachael Abbott, a young woman on the run from really bad trouble.
When Savich and Sherlock arrive, they find Jack and Rachael in the Parlow clinic and Dr. MacLean comatose in the Franklin County Hospital, prognosis unknown. But what is known about Dr. MacLean is that he has an incurable disease called Frontal Lobe Dementia that causes the victim to act and/or speak without censoring, e.g., ‘did you know your wife is sleeping with your boss?’ As the disease progresses it causes the victim to become even less restrained, all without realizing his words can cause great harm, or fear at what he could reveal.
As the psychiatrist with an impressive patient list of Washington movers and shakers, this could present a huge problem. There have already been three attempts on Dr. MacLean’s life. One of his patients is very afraid that what the doctor knows wil become common knowledge. It is up to Jack, Savich and Sherlock to find out who is behind the murder attempts, and keep Timothy alive.
And Rachael’s secrets? It all revolves around her father Senator John James Abbott of Maryland, a man she knew only a few weeks before he was killed in what was ruled an accidental death. But Rachael knows it wasn’t.
