Rob Campbell hadn't reached his second birthday when his parents were killed in a car crash in Ventura, California. Billy McNeill, a friend of the Campbell's, wrote to his Aunt Jane asking her to adopt the child. She readily agreed and Rob was sent to live with her and her husband in Hawaii. He grew into a happy and precocious young man, excelling academically and in sports. While at Stanford University he visited Ventura to learn more about his parents. Mysteriously, he found out no record of a family named Campbell being in a fatal accident, nor was his birth ever recorded. He recalled that Jane McNeill's nephew had died suddenly immediately after writing to her. And, upon contacting the law firm which handled the adoption, it is discovered that the file is missing. He is told the lawyer involved had died under unusual circumstances. Rob is devastated by these discoveries and vows to find his real parents. When he does he is ecstatic with his new-found mother but is horrified to find out that his father, now dead, was a spy for Japan at the time of WW 11. As Rob probes deeper into his father's life he uncovers a terrifying fact - the man who recruited and trained his father is the one who planned every detail of Rob's life. Even worse, Rob has now become entangled in this mastermind's plan to make Japan a world super-power. This evil man will stop at nothing to fulfill this mission and leaves a trail of dead bodies in the wake of his pursuit of his brilliantly devised plan - Empire.