When the Ryme Lady disappears with all hands and a 60 million dollar cargo, American hard-man Art Lemman and English ex-lawyer Gavin Blair investigate for the International Maritime Bureau. The shop-owners are fighting against liquidation and are fearful of a predatory attack from Carl Klodinsky, an American shipping tycoon. But has Ryme Lady actually sunk at all? Or is it an insurance scam, piracy or an act of international terrorism? On whose side is Claudine, the chic French-American assistant to Klodinsky who exports Blair's vulnerability?

Through Paris, Singapore, New York, London and West Africa, death and violent destruction threaten the investigation and only when Cerne View, a huge cargo vessel, is attacked and arrested in West Africa do Lemman and Blair realize that something far more sinister is involved...nothing less than an international outrage involving the White House and Downing Street. Despite their uneasy relationship, the investigators have to work together against that most deadly of enemies...time.