Tom Bradshaw, a top-level Los Angeles negotiator for a kidnap and ransom insurance company, takes extraordinary risks to free kidnap victims until he is kidnapped and fights for his life.

He meets with kidnappers to transfer ransoms to off-shore accounts, drops money from a helicopter to waiting snatchers and rescues victims. These perils result in his being wounded twice.

The job is addictive, and he's hooked on the high it gives him when he successfully brings a victim back from the black hole of despondence.

Bradshaw is consumed with a quest to discover who is behind a trail of terror as ten top banking officials are kidnapped over three years. A high-stakes game of cat and mouse progresses between the negotiator and the kidnap gang leader until they ultimately face off in a final confrontation, from which only one will survive.