Linda Hara is a foreign correspondent based in Asia and has spent thirty years being shot at, tear gassed and stoned. Her prize winning work about Japan has earned her a lucrative book deal letting Linda retire in luxury, but she almost dies in an unforeseen midlife crisis, which sensitizes Linda to what she's missed in life-a family of her own. Several colleagues have adopted Japanese children, and she tries to do so only to be forced to face her own troubled past. No sooner is a two-year-old girl, Aiko, placed with Linda, than the girl's grandmother, Haruko, tries to get Aiko back. During the Japanese economic bubble, Haruko was one of the world's wealthiest woman, and she enlists the help of Kato Keikichi, powerful head of the Kato Foundation. Linda gives up her book deal and leaves Japan, broke but not broken, escaping with Aiko to America. Linda now intends to adopt Aiko under Illinois law, which Japanese courts will recognize, thus circumventing the grandmother, who Linda learns is severely demented. Unfortunately, Linda needs the help of her estranged father, Dr. Art Schneider, a veteran of the Battle of Okinawa and virulently anti-Japanese. The influential Kato recruits Akagihara Gyo, a muckraking journalist, to track Linda down forcing her and Aiko back to Japan to fight for the destiny of the little girl. The conniving Kato has his own conspiracy underway and will hesitate at nothing, including murder, to assure Aiko is returned to her real family.