Jason and Steve, cofounders of an information technology start-up located in Carr's Pt., a small coastal community on the Olympic Peninsula, are profiled in tech media owing to their innovative software. The publicity catches the attention of the Defense Department which believes the work of the two young men might have important defense-related applications. A criminal syndicate based in Eastern Europe has also become interested and sends an espionage team to Carr's Pt. to steal the start-up's proprietary software, intending to sell it to the highest bidder.

But the Defense Intelligence Agency, fearing such a development, arranges for one of its key operatives, Lt. Colonel Elliott Stone, to take up temporary residence in Carr's Pt., posing as a fledgling fiction writer--there to attend a writers' workshop hosted by the local college.

Using cold-blooded tactics, including murder, the espionage team successfully positions itself where it can conduct data-acquisition surveillance. As the plot unfolds, Col. Stone is forced to lead a desperate effort at interdiction--one that ultimately involves the services of a Delta Force team in the forced boarding of a super yacht in the Black Sea, just off Odessa.