It's not wise to tempt fate. It's a hard thing to avoid if you've got the world working against you. Alex McCleod, formerly with the CIA, now runs a very sophisticated ''information & intelligence'' service out of Washington. He is hired by an abrasive Texan millionaire, Elliot Streicher, to find the man's missing daughter, last seen with some notorious Mexican cartel people on a ship out in California. Yet from the start, despite the generous payment to undertake the assignment, things are suspicious. Prime of which is Streicher himself who, in addition to his almost cavalier attitude regarding his daughter's disappearance, has all kinds of bizarre, inside government connections to people who were involved in McCleod's ''forced retirement'' from the CIA. As McCleod sets out on the case, he swiftly suspects that he is not really being employed for his talents as a detective at all, but rather as a fall guy in a set-up. Indeed, as he continues on the trail, dealing with Mexican gangsters and Nazi bikers, he soon discovers that he is carefully being watched and monitored by not only the DEA and the FBI, but by his former associates back at Langley. Something far greater than a missing rich girl is at stake here, something that has his investigation stepping on some very big and important toes. Realizing he's being screwed and his fate is being sealed, McCleod decides to play a wild hand.