Clayton White is a former Secret Service agent.
A combat rescue officer with the 57th Rescue Squadron, Clayton is deployed to the Middle East when we first meet, running the show aboard an HH-60G Pave Hawk search-and-rescue helicopter trying to rescue two Marine pilots who had crashed their helo in ISIS-controlled northern Iraq. This is an extremely dangerous occupation as the people doing it know from the outset they are heading into places where people are determined to keep them from succeeding by doing their best to stop them breathing. White loves it.
Unfortunately, he is not able to continue doing so for reasons that make a lot of sense but are not what he really wants. That does not mean that he stops racing into the face of danger. His next occupation, which he starts fairly soon after we get to know him, has him working for the American Secret Service. He is still in the protection game though now he is trying to keep his protectee from being in that danger. Unfortunately, there seems to be an endless line of people who want his charges less than alive so his personal survival chances remain very low.
And even when he calls an end to that and tries to find a new vocation not so filled with flying bullets and explosions and crazed would-be assassins, White's penchant for attracting danger remains way too high.
Just ask Veronica Hammond, his girl friend and an archaeologist "who also happens to be the vice president elect's daughter". Daddy, who does not share a warm relationship with White, will go on to become the Chief Executive who will call upon White for even more harrowing missions. As a reader, I have to wonder if he is looking to White because White is so reliable, or to find a way to get him out of his daughter's life.