Late at night in the Oval Office, President Stanley Coles gets bad news. Dr. Walter Boldt, the brains behind a game-changing TOP SECRET space weapon, has likely defected. CIA believes Boldt is in Tehran, and with so much at stake, Coles covertly authorizes the Talons—a shadowy, illicit team of three men and one woman—to kidnap Boldt and bring him back. The Talons quietly gather where the law doesn't allow—inside the super-secret National Security Agency.

Dex Battle, a solitary man, is happily holed up in his mountain cabin, but he's a Talon and he must go. When he and a teammate are sneaked into Iran, they're pulled into a deadly web of espionage and international intrigue. And when things get toughest for Dex, he has visions of an ancient Native American whose spirit he'd encountered once before—while in college, experimenting with a hallucinogenic drug.

Meanwhile, an American jet blows a Chinese helicopter out of the sky. China responds, and the two countries move quickly to the brink of war. Dr. Boldt's space weapon will give the US a significant edge, but there's a major problem; it can't be activated without Boldt. The clock is ticking, and if the Talons can't bring him back quickly enough, the two countries will clash in the Pacific where China has an overwhelming advantage. And countless Americans will die.