Tyrell Hawthorne was a naval intelligence officer — one of the best — until the rain-swept night in Amsterdam when his wife was murdered, an innocent victim.

Amaya Bajaratt is beautiful, elusive, deadly — and she has set in motion a chilling conspiracy that a desperate government cannot stop.

With the life of the president hanging in the balance, Hawthorne must follow Amaya's serpentine trail to uncover the sinister network that exists to help this consummate killer.

The novel "consciously draws on Freudian theory to lend depth to his treatment of the two dominant characters, a psychotic woman, driven by childhood traumas to emasculate dominant males and to destroy all symbols of male hierarchical power, and her opponent, a weakened, age-conscious male reaffirming his masculine strengths.

Telephone conversations using scrambling are an important plot element in this novel.