One early morning on a beach in Virginia, a dead body is discovered by a man taking his daily swim – Arman Bajalan, formerly an interpreter in Iraq. After surviving an assassination attempt that killed his wife and child, Arman has been given lonely sanctuary in the US. Now, sure that the murder is connected with his past, he knows he’s still not safe. Seasoned detective Catherine Wheel and her fresh-off-the beat partner have little to go on beyond a bus ticket in the man’s pocket. It is to lead them to Sally Ewell, a local journalist as grief-stricken as Arman by the Iraq war, who is investigating a nefarious corporation: one on the cusp of landing a multi-billion-dollar government defence contract. As victims mount around Arman, taking the team down wrong turns and towards startling evidence, they find themselves in a race, committed to unravelling the truth and keeping Arman alive.