This story opens with the protagonist being hit on the head and partially strangled at dawn in the park in front of the White House. She's rescued by a gun-toting special forces guy, who she mistakes for her attacker, and pepper sprays. After some back and forth, he escorts her into the White House (with a slight detour to discover a murdered woman of similar appearance and similar clothing). She's wet, bedraggled, covered in mud, her throat has cord strangulation marks, and she also has a cut on the front of the head, which is bleeding enough that she's in danger of dripping on the carpet.The encounters she has while in this state, and the fact that a quick look-over by a doctor was considered sufficient before spending the entire day being debriefed by various security people, shorted my credulity circuit and I skimmed through the rest of the book. [She even had a pencil pusher chasing her to fill out "injured at work" forms within a couple of hours of being knocked unconscious at dawn.]Just couldn't make it work for me.
