Adrian Kahler is a psychologist turned detective. He has a Sherlock Holmes intellect and a Nero Wolfe distaste for travel. Stanley Egor is a former Navy SEAL who presents the visual impact of a Polish Shaquille O'Neal. Barry Sandler is a young empath, unable to control his evolving gift. Croatia and Serbia are at war. Barry rescues the beautiful Helena Galian from a plane that has crashed into the Chesapeake Bay. She is a Croatian secret agent carrying evidence of atrocities at Serbian concentration camps. Stefan Jankovic is the son of a martyred Serbian warlord. His mission is to intercept the documents Helena carries, but his true purpose, known only to himself, is to wrest from Helena her secret of immortality. Barry becomes infatuated with Helena. He drags Kahler and Egor straight into the middle of the Yugoslavian civil war, into an unfolding story of patriotism, intrigue, terror, and revenge.