Former special agent Cleo North thought she had sworn off bureaucracy forever—but the Air Force Office of Special Investigations has other ideas. They need her expertise and are willing to pay her extravagant fee. The case? An off-duty U.S. tanker pilot recently took a bullet under suspicious circumstances and wound up dead.

It doesn't take long before Cleo and Major Jack Donovan from the OSI—along with some help from British Intelligence—discover the pilot was involved in some questionable activities. But why was he so interested in a U.S. Army Air Corps transport that went down in the English Channel in 1943?

When another murder links a far-fetched story of wartime international intrigue to millions of dollars in gold, only one question remains: who is behind the ultimate cover-up? And could Cleo be the next bullet's victim?