US Treasury agent and former Navy Seal Jack Becker is assigned to the German Finance Ministry for liaison. While there, the ministry receives reports from the Italian Guardia di Finanza of gold bars showing up in Sicilian gold markets with Third Reich stampings on them. Where they are coming from is unclear and suspicious. Then a gold ingot with such stamps is spotted on sale in a Berlin coin and antiquities shop, said to be on consignment from an east European owner. The Finance Ministry suspects someone has found a Nazi hoard that by rights belongs to the German government. When it becomes apparent that the Berlin ingot has come from someone in Romania, Jack is sent to work with the Romanian national police, accompanied by ministry field agent Hilda Brunner, an auburn-haired beauty skilled with a gun.
The mystery of the gold ingots turns out to be just the beginning for Jack and Hilda in the dangerous unraveling of a complex conspiracy to win control of Romania and unleash a new terror of ethnic cleansing.