President Franklin Blake survives an audacious terrorist attack at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City, but the first lady does not. Kincaid, the junior Democratic senator from Oklahoma, finds himself backing a proposed constitutional amendment that would place vast emergency powers in the hands of a few men and allow for the suspension of most civil liberties. Kincaid's new wife and chief of staff, Christina, works to identify those behind the new Oklahoma City outrage, a group that may include that genre staple, the corrupt insider.