Paul Trifthauser's life was predictable. He had met the woman of his dreams and for the first time in a decade, was off the bottle. But when his grandfather died he unknowingly inherited an espionage network so secretive and no lethal that that even the CIA was afraid to confront it. Buried in layers of code, hidden in 3,000 crossword puzzles in an old barn were Joseph Schneider's secrets. Suddenly it's thrust upon Trifthauser to figure out the code before his grandfather's enemies, the world's massive trading cartels, realize he doesn't know it. Armed with nothing but intuition and a twenty-nine year old Indian prostitute named Alejandra, he races against time in an attempt to stay alive. He's about to discover that friends can be enemies and enemies, allies.