One-and-a-half billion dollars disappears out of a numbered investment account into an impenetrable cyberspace maze. And Dragon Head, the leader of the Shí bèi crime group, wants it back. But the thief who stole it lies dead on the tracks of Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway, his access code having perished with him.

That leaves only one man whom Dragon Head can force to retrieve the money: Aleksandr Talanov, the former KGB colonel in whose name the account was opened years earlier by Soviet President, Yuri Andropov. The money was to have funded a KGB espionage program that fell apart with the demise of the Soviet Union. Since that time, the account has continued to grow.

If it were simply a matter of money, the United States would not be concerned. But Dragon Head wants the money to fund an army of hackers, one of whom has already penetrated America’s GPS network. The result: a midair collision that kills over a thousand people.

With national security at stake, the Director of National Intelligence becomes very interested in the whereabouts of that money. He wants the funds to remain lost. But Dragon Head wants them found. And Talanov is caught in the middle.

Both sides up the pressure by threatening to kill Talanov’s closest friends. The focus of their threats: an eleven-year-old girl his best friend Zak wants to adopt . . . a young girl unimportant against the sweep of national security and billions of dollars.

Unimportant to everyone but Talanov, that is, who has promised never to desert her.

And yet how can Talanov possibly keep that promise with both sides threatening to kill her? And not just her but everyone he loves? It’s an impossible situation when impossible is not an option, because whatever choice he makes, someone will die.