September, 2001. Al-Qaeda's terror attacks on New York and Washington became a living image for many Americans far beyond those deadly strikes. The shock waves quickly reached the placid campus of Tennyson College in upstate New York. Sameen Dehdashty, an Iranian by birth, comes to see herself as a target for revenge and turns to her faculty advisor for help. Professor Henry Carey and his wife Gerri are caught up in a troubling new world as they offer shelter to Sameen. The Careys now find themselves beset by anxious and demanding parents, by neighbors who believe that the President has personally charged them with uncovering terrorist cells in the United States, and by males with romantic interests in Sameen, including Sameen's fiance and the Carey's own son Michael, who, in the aftermath of 9/11, awaits deployment orders with the 10th Mountain Division. Henry Carey's efforts to provide a safe haven for Sameen become entangled with the interests of the Central Intelligence Agency, and when death becomes part of Henry Carey's world, Detective Nicholas DiBartolo comes knocking, for the professor or members of his family seem to be intimately involved.