Five renegade NATO intelligence officers sent by their governments to the U.S. to steal industrial secrets from government and hi-tech companies secretly conspire to sell technologies they acquire to rogue nations for personal profit. All have high-level contacts in European and Middle Eastern governments and criminal networks. They soon involve several U.S. government employees as information sources enabling the group to steal patent applications and hi-tech data. Planning to be married, Rachel Brown resigns from the CIA after successful tours in Germany and Hong Kong. However, her pilot fianc crashes en route to San Francisco for the wedding. With the help of a childhood friend, currently a powerful U.S. senators aide, she returns to Washington and joins a lobbying firm representing several small high technology companies. She meets and becomes involved with the conspirators at Capitol Hill social events. She is of intense interest to them, especially after she becomes romantically involved with Jason Conrad, a client and CEO of a California hi-tech company involved in developing cutting edge encryption software and biometrics--areas of major interest to the NATO conspirators. Her liaison with Jason gets complicated when her former lover, a college friend of Jasons and international journalist, reenters her life and wants to revive their old affair. Through her past contacts, she alerts the CIA and FBI of the European groups intrigues and, together with Jason, cooperates with the government to try and thwart the foreign agents whose ruthless schemes involve murder, kidnapping and blackmail. The action moves from Washington to West Virginia, San Francisco, Paris and Belgium as Rachel becomes more enmeshed in the nefarious schemes and intrigues. Her progress from innocence to the world of espionage and betrayal reflects the complexity of modern life for this young professional woman.