Gun shots echo in the cavernous basement of the Oakland Hyatt Hotel. Peter Wu lays on the cold asphalt floor. In his dying breath he makes his union Business Agent, Isaac Smith, swear to watch over his niece, Mai Ling . "Smitty, they will be after her - you must swear." What obsession drives Mai Ling to drag them both into the dangerous jaws of international intrigue; what secret so menacing, so ominous, that the mere knowledge of it is a death warrant. Will the growing attraction Smitty feels for Mai Ling drag him ever closer to betrayal and annihilation? All Smitty knows is that he must untangle an ever expanding web woven of deceit and death to fulfill a promise, his promise...to a dead man.