Lou Malloy and Hilary Kelly have just returned from a very tough assignment for Max Reynolds and Hilary wants to take some time off and go to Italy for a vacation. Lou thinks it's a good idea and when he calls Max to get clearance on it, Max tells Lou that while they are there he has a small request to make. It seems that a scientist has gone missing and Max would like to have Lou check to see if he is still around. Max also tells Lou that to find this scientist he has to find a ghost ship named the Arctic Queen and that it is important that this scientist be found because he is the inventor of a new type of weapon called an electromagnetic device. In addition, there is a small matter of $400 million in missing rough cut diamonds. Hilary is not happy about it since she feels that she and Lou never have time alone because of all of Max's requests. Lou, being Lou, he tells Max they will do it and Malloy ends up taking his whole crew to Italy. In the course of events, Max wants Lou to meet up with an ex-KGB operative named Alex Gregory and find out what he knows about the missing Arctic Queen and an Israeli operative named Yeri Hermostofi who Max feels could be helpful as well. To meet with this ex-KGB operative, Lou has to go to the island of Sardinia off the coast of Italy on the Tarrayian Sea. To do this, Lou and his crew have to take a car ferry where the action begins with Bunny Barnes and Hilary Kelly being kidnapped. Fighting to get Bunny and Hilary returned, the action begins as Lou races a billionaire criminal mind and a ruthless Chinese leader of one of the largest triads from the island of Macau. The pace picks up as Lou has to face wild dogs, a crazy arms dealer and a terrorist group known as Brothers of the Blood.