Five years later, Anti-Terrorist Task Force (ATTF, a fictional FBI department based on the Joint Terrorism Task Force) detective John Corey is encouraged to reinvestigate the crash by his wife Kate Mayfield, who had worked on the original investigation, which was officially blamed on mechanical failure.

One of the returning characters from "The Lion's Game" and "Plum Island" is CIA operative Ted Nash, whom DeMille has developed into Corey's antagonist and nemesis in his career with the ATTF.

Much of the action in the novel centers on the search for the couple who inadvertently videotaped the in-air explosion that brought down TWA Flight 800 off the coast of Long Island.

At the center of Corey's investigation are witness statements claiming that the fatal explosion was caused by a missile and not by mechanical failure.

Corey is warned by his superiors not to look into the TWA crash, and he and his wife are temporarily assigned to anti-terrorist activities in Yemen and Tanzania to keep them from pursuing the case.